


A Lion Tamed 2

by StuffandThangs11



Series: A Lion Tamed [2]
Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Beating, Blow Jobs, Bondage and Discipline, Breathplay, Butt Plugs, Collars, Cutting, Drugs, Drunk Sex, Dubiously Consensual Blow Jobs, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Food Kink, Food Porn, Food Sex, Foot Jobs, Force Choking, Foursome, Foursome - M/M/M/M, Grooming, Hand & Finger Kink, Hand Feeding, Hand Jobs, Human Trafficking, Humiliation, Knifeplay, Manipulation, Master/Pet, Master/Slave, Medical Procedures, Mental Instability, Mind Manipulation, Minor Character Death, Molestation, Multi, Multiple Personalities, Nightmares, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Past Rape/Non-con, Pedophilia, Piercings, Psychological Trauma, Public Blow Jobs, Public Nudity, Public Sex, Rape, Rape Aftermath, Rape/Non-con Elements, Semi-Public Sex, Sexual Violence, Stockholm Syndrome, Stuffing, Therapy, Verbal Humiliation, Voyeurism, Whipping, psychological reconditioning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-19
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-03 06:51:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 26
Words: 61,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6601084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StuffandThangs11/pseuds/StuffandThangs11
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the episode 8x18 - Restoration</p><p>What if Carl Buford didn't die? What if he lived and escaped from prison? This is going to be an AU where this happens. It's going to take Derek many places and get very dark and twisted. If you are triggered by non-consensual rape elements, this isn't the fic for you.</p><p>This is Part 2 of the A Lion Tamed Series.  Please read Part 1 first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

When Derek thinks of home, he thinks of Antoine and his expansive home. He thinks of the wooden floors of his stable room and his stall with hay and comfortable fleece blankets. He thinks of kneeling on his pallet by the fire and listening to Antoine read to him. He thinks of the silken sheets of Antoine's bed and his Master's body that beckons him ever closer.

_I love you very much, Derek. You have brought me great joy. You are the perfect pet._

As they board the jet, a jet that makes him flinch with memories he's tried to forget, he doesn't think he's going back home, not to where what he considers home, anyway. They've dressed him in scrubs and the cotton feels strange against his skin. It itches. Derek wants it off but they've told him not to remove it and Derek is a good pet. He's going to try to do as he's told.

He kneels on the floor of the jet and Hotch helps him to stand again with hands at his shoulders. He sets him in a chair and tells him to stay there. Derek stays because he's a good pet.

_I'm not allowed on the furniture. No is a bad word. I'm a good pet._

Derek looks out of the small window of the jet beside him as the plane takes off. Where is he going? What will they do with him? Who will bathe him? Who will feed him? Who will brush his teeth? Who will tell him what to do? Who will fuck him? Derek knows he needs sex.

"Derek. It's okay. You're safe now."

He looks over to David and finds the man blurred around the edges. When had he started crying again? Derek dips his head and swipes the back of his hands over his eyes. His fingers scratch at the material that itches his skin. This is wrong. It all feels wrong.

Hotch moves to sit next to him and takes both of Derek's hands in his. The hem of the scrubs falls back in place over his torso. Apparently he'd been trying to pull the top off. A good pet wouldn't have done that after being told not to.

_You'll be a good pet then, won't you Derek?_ He's trying. But like Antoine has said, Derek is also a wild thing.

"When is the last time you wore clothes?" Aaron asks.

Derek has to think about it. It's been so long. While the tack and his tail had felt like clothing, he knows they don't count. One hand slips from Hotch's and reaches up to his neck. "My collar. Sir." He's going to start crying again. That collar is the only thing he has that Antoine has given him.

"We have it. But you don't need it. It's evidence now, Derek."

"Please."

"It doesn't count as clothing. When is the last time you wore clothes?" Seeing tears in Derek's eyes breaks Aaron's heart. He's trying to keep him focused on something, anything, but what he instinctually wants to do. He knows that Derek wants the scrubs off. He knows that Derek wants to offer himself up for sexual pleasure.

Derek is silent so Hotch repeats the question to keep Derek on track. "When is the last time you wore clothes?"

When was that? It feels like so long ago. "In the car, Sir."

"What car?" David asks.

"When I saw you. In the car. Martin took me from Carl, Sir."

"You saw me?" Rossi's eyes flick to Hotch and back to Derek.

"All of you, Sir." Derek answers. "On the street." He looks up to David. "May I please you, Sir?"

For a moment David seems uncertain of how to reply to the question. It makes Derek feel embarrassed. Then he finally says what Hotch had earlier. "No, thank you."

"You saw us on the street in front of the house Carl kept you in?" Hotch asks. 

"Yes, Sir."

They'd been _that_ close so long ago? So he was right that Martin made the phone call that gave them that address. Martin took Derek to the Gallery. The Gallery is the only reason for the similarities between Marissa and Derek now.

Derek still has some kind of vocabulary, more so than Marissa. Derek isn't completely broken. They can maybe use that to get to the Gallery. The look Rossi is giving him says that the other man is thinking the same thing. The look they share also says that they both feel horrible for thinking it. This is Derek. They're not going to _use_ him, they're going to enlist his help.

"My collar, Sir." Derek still scratches at his bare neck. He needs that collar. 

Hotch takes his hand away from his neck and holds onto it. "You can't have it right now, Derek. We're going to hold onto it for you. We'll keep it safe for you. Okay?"

"Yes, Sir." Derek says, even though inside of his head he's screaming for that collar. He wants it now. He wants it back. It's his. He needs it. "May I please you, Sir?"

"No, thank you, Derek." Hotch doesn't let go of Derek's hands.

 

* * *

 

As suspected, Derek isn't sent home to Antoine. He's put in a federal psychiatric facility, one that's only a mile or two from Quantico where he used to work in another lifetime. Derek remembers visiting this facility a few times in that other life, when he'd needed to interview one person or another for a case.

Derek's room is sparse with an iron bed, a sink, a toilet, a small window with bars on it. He's issued cotton pants and a white tee shirt. Derek takes his clothes off and sleeps on the floor. He kneels on the floor and waits. He waits for someone to come in to take care of him. No one comes.

They'll eventually come for him, he knows. Once in the Gallery, always in the Gallery. Maybe they'll get him back to his Master.

Eventually, he's taken to his first appointment with an on-site psychologist. He's made to dress and pads barefoot down the hallway with his hands clasped behind his back. He's led to an office with a couch and chairs in it. A desk is along the far wall. There are windows in here without bars on them. The sun is shining outside. It feels like forever since Derek has felt sunshine on his skin. He wants to strip down and run out into the daylight and bask in the warmth of it, a wild, kept stallion, just like Antoine had wanted him to be. Instead, he kneels on the floor by the couch.

There's a man that stands at the desk. The orderlies step outside the door but don't leave. They make Derek think of the guards at his Master's place and at the Gallery. Always there, just in case. The man at the desk has salt and pepper hair, a heavy beard and moustache and dark rimmed spectacles. He gives Derek a kind smile, seemingly nonplussed that Derek is kneeling on the floor when there's seating all around.

"Hello, Derek. I'm Doctor Sam." The man isn't old, but he isn't young either. He and Derek might be the same age. Derek feels very old right now, older than he actually is.

"I've spoken with your friends." Doctor Sam continues. "Aaron, David, Spencer, Penelope and J.J. And your family, your mother and sister."

_Sarah. Oh god, Sarah. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. I'm a whore. I'm a whore._

"They're all so glad that you're safe." Doctor Sam moves to sit in one of the chairs. He sets a recording device on the table and has a note pad and pen in his hands. "I'm told you haven't been taking care of yourself."

Someone is supposed to take care of him. Derek isn't allowed to do things for himself.

_My Master will take care of me._

"Derek. Why haven't you been eating?"

Silence. Why hasn't he been eating? His Master isn't here to feed him. Sara isn't here to feed him. Nick and Martin aren't here to feed him. They're supposed to feed him when his Master can't.

"Why haven't you been eating, Derek? Answer me."

"May I please you, Sir?" Derek asks.

"No, thank you." Doctor Sam responds. Derek wishes someone would let him do what he's been designed to do. Pleasing people is easier than everything else. "Why haven't you been eating?"

"My Master, Sir."

"What about him?"

"He feeds me, Sir."

The Doctor nods and writes something down. "What else does he do for you?"

"Everything, Sir."

"Does your Master have a name, Derek?"

Derek trips over that question. He doesn't want to get his Master in trouble. Antoine has to get better so that Derek can go back to be with him. "My collar, Sir..."

"Would it make you feel better to have the collar that was around your neck when you were found in the wreck?"

He can't help the way he turns hopeful eyes on the doctor. "Yes, Sir. Please."

"I'll see what I can do." The man says. "But first I need you to answer some questions. Does your Master have a name?"

Derek hesitates again. But finally, if it means he gets his collar back, he gives his Master's name. "Antoine."

Doctor Sam writes that down. "A last name?"

He shakes his head. He doesn't remember being given a last name. Just Antoine.

"That's good. That's very good. You were abducted by Carl Buford, is that right?"

It feels so long ago now. He was a very bad pet then. He'd fought too much.

_I'm a whore._

"Yes, Sir."

"Martin Himinez took you to the Art Gallery?"

The Gallery, where he'd been thrown to the brutes in the catacombs. The brutes had taken his voice from him. They'd broken him and put him back together in a different way than before.

_I'm a hole_

"Yes, Sir. May I please you, Sir?"

"No, thank you." The Doctor is writing furiously in that notepad. "From the Gallery you were sold to your Master?"

_I am adored. I'm the perfect pet._

Derek nods. "Yes, Sir."

"Why were you in the RV?"

"May I please you, Sir?"

"No. Why were you in the RV, Derek?"

Why was he in the RV? He was being transported. "My Master made them promise not to put me in a box, Sir. They usually put me in a box."

"A box?"

"For transportation, Sir."

The Doctor nods and writes a few more things down. "They were transporting you from where to where?"

"From my Master to the Mistress, Sir."

"Mistress?"

"The Gallery, Sir." Derek answers. His body needs so much right now, to be washed inside and out, to have his nails shaved, food and sex. "Please, let me please you, Sir."

"No, thank you, Derek." The Doctor jots some things down.

An orderly brings in a tray with a plate and a plastic cup of water on it. On the plate is a sandwich cut in half. Those aren't bite-sized pieces.

"Derek, I want you to pick up that sandwich and take a bite of it."

Derek just stares at the sandwich. His hands clench tightly together behind his back. His Master is supposed to feed him. He can't pick the sandwich up. He can't-

"Show me your hands, Derek. Put them in front of you."

His fingers ease and he unclasps his hands, bringing them in front of him to hold them palm up so the Doctor can see them.

"Good." Doctor Sam nods. "Now pick up the sandwich."

The sandwich blurs before him. This is a trap. It's a trap. He's supposed to be a good pet. He's supposed to hold out through this new hell and be a good pet.

_I love you very much, Derek. You are the perfect pet._

"My collar, Sir."

"I'll see what I can do." Doctor Sam nods. "But I need you to pick up the sandwich and take a bite of it."

_This isn't right. Nothing is right. It's not okay. I'm not okay. We're not okay._

Derek stares at the sandwich. "May I speak with Nick, Sir?"

"Nick?"

"He tells me when things are okay, Sir." Derek says, still staring at the sandwich, his hands resting palm up on his knees.

"Is Nick someone your friends with the FBI might know?"

Does Derek have friends anymore? He isn't so sure. But since it means he might get to see Nick, he nods. "Yes, Sir. He was in the RV, Sir."

"I'll talk to your friends about Nick... if you eat at least half of that sandwich without any help." Doctor Sam says, leaning forward in his chair. "And drink the water."

He just has to do this one thing and he might get his collar, he might get to talk to Nick. No one can fault him for being a bad pet in these circumstances. Derek's fingers twitch. Still he hesitates. The Doctor waits.

Finally, Derek picks up the sandwich and takes a tiny, bite-sized bite. It feels like the most simple thing in the world, and the hardest. Like climbing a mountain but only in the hindsight of it, once all the hard work is done. He waits for the floor to fall out from beneath him. It doesn't.

Derek takes another tiny bite and tries to imagine the scent of hay into the room.

_I'm okay._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the episode 8x18 - Restoration
> 
> What if Carl Buford didn't die? What if he lived and escaped from prison? This is going to be an AU where this happens. It's going to take Derek many places and get very dark and twisted. If you are triggered by non-consensual rape elements, this isn't the fic for you.
> 
> This is Part 2 of the A Lion Tamed Series. Please read Part 1 first.

There's a routine in this place as well. Derek hadn't realized how much he'd gotten to where he needs a routine. For a long time he meets with Doctor Sam every day. Eventually that turns into Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. And eventually it turns into only two days a week. Then One.

They think he's making leaps and bounds in his therapy. Really, deep down, Derek is using the techniques learned in the Gallery where he learned to adapt to each new thing. He says all the right answers whether he means them or not. He makes himself go through the motions of doing all the right things. Baby steps toward getting the hell out of here and back to... what?

Back to Antoine.

Back to the Gallery.

Back to the harem.

Back to anything that isn't this.

True to his word, Doctor Sam eventually gets Derek his collar back. Derek keeps it hidden under his mattress when he isn't in his room. When he's in his room, he's always holding it. He puts it around his neck at night when he sleeps.

Untrue to his word, Doctor Sam never lets Derek see Nick. Maybe once he's out of this place, Derek can find a way to get to Nick.

He remembers a time in the harem when Derek had wanted to rescue all the Mistress's pets. He knows now how futile that would be. Derek isn't the only circle trying to fit into a square life. Each and every one of those pets, all thirteen of them, are circles too. He wouldn't want to put them through this, this strange outsider feeling that he's living through now.

Derek is a freak show to everyone here. His eyes are lines with dark, dramatic kol that won't ever wash off with makeup remover. He's pierced in several different places that all of the orderlies have seen since Derek sometimes fails to keep his clothes on. They keep asking him if he wants them to cut his braids off. Derek won't let them. Antoine loved his hair like this. Derek loves it too because Antoine loved it.

Eating his own meals is one of the hardest things to do. Keeping his clothes on is the second hardest. Every day is a struggle for both of those things. While he's gotten to where he sits on the couch in his sessions with Doctor Sam, he sleeps naked on the floor every night. He never pleases himself sexually, no matter how much his body might want and need it. He just can't let himself go that far.

Through it all, Derek does get a little of his fight back. But is he fighting for the right things? What is right and wrong anymore? No one in this place is ever going to help him get back to his Master. He has to get out.

It's five months later when Derek is let out of the facility. He'll have therapy sessions twice a week with a new doctor. But they're satisfied that he can and will take care of himself. Derek considers taking care of himself temporary, a means to an end.

Hotch meets him outside of the facility. Derek's house had been sold in the year he was gone, his stuff put into storage that Rossi pays for. Derek is a non-entity. He has nothing that's his, not really. That's okay. Derek doesn't need much.

He still has plenty of money in his bank account, Aaron assures him. But the Bureau is paying for the apartment Derek will be living in for awhile. And since Carl and the Gallery are both out in the world still, Derek will be under surveillance.

Derek accepts all of this with a nod.

The apartment he's taken to is empty.

"We're going to furnish it. We just didn't realize you would be out this quickly." Hotch explains.

Quickly? Five months is quick? Derek is now almost a year and a half removed from whatever his life was before. He shakes his head.

"No, this is fine." He swallows back the 'sir' he wants to end that sentence with. That's a part of Doctor Sam's therapy. Quick ending his sentences that way. "I'll get my own stuff."

As if on cue, Penelope, David and Spencer walk into the apartment with grocery and shopping bags. It's the first time Derek has seen Spencer and Penelope. He knows he looks like a freak. People can't help but stare. He dips his head and turns away.

_This is wrong. It's all wrong._

His hands curl in the pockets of his hoodie to keep himself from tearing out of his clothes so he can be naked. "You could have told me they were coming." He mutters to Hotch.

"They thought you would say no if you knew."

That thought isn't wrong. The bags set down in the open space of the living room and the small kitchen, Penelope comes at him first and hugs him. Derek keeps his hands in the pockets of his hoodie. She pulls back to look at him. "Hello my handsome friend. There are no words for how much you've been missed. But now that you're back we can hang and do things. I mean, not that you have to go out if you don't want to!"

"Yeah, if you're not ready for that we could play chess here." Spencer adds.

"Or some kind of card game." Rossi gestures to the bag he just set down. "Top of the line air bed. Plus sheets. It'll hold you over until we can furnish this place."

"Groceries! They go in the fridge. I'll do that." Penelope sets about doing that in the kitchen.

Spencer steps closer, his own hands shoved into his slacks pockets. "I missed you."

_Hey, pretty boy!_

Derek visibly flinches with the voice that pipes up in his head space. That's what the old Derek would say. What would he say now? He has no clue. It's awkward. Derek needs someone to tell him what to do.

I missed you, Reid had said.

"I missed you too." Derek finally says. But it's late and stilted so that it loses all sincerity. It's not that it isn't sincere. Derek's just a different person now.

Spencer has the decency to smile at the reply anyway, as if he gets it. No one gets it. No one understands. They think they know what's going on inside of his head... they have no clue.

The group stays for awhile. They sit and have a picnic of sandwiches Penelope made on the floor. Derek makes himself eat the whole sandwich, tiny bites. The others joke and try to make the best of a situation that can't be comfortable for them either.

While they're putting towels they bought in the bathroom and setting up the airbed, Derek pulls Aaron aside.

"I wanna ask you some things and I don't want you to read too much into them." He says.

Aaron almost smiles. "You know I'm a profiler, right?"

"Yeah, but." Oh. That's supposed to be a joke. Derek goes through the motions of looking amused. "No sign of Carl?"

"No. Not even a blip on the radar."

"Martin..."

"Dead. He died in the crash."

And here's what he really wants to know. "Nick."

"He's being held in solitary confinement until we either have a reason to keep him or we think he's given us all he can and he gets sent to prison."

"He didn't abduct me. He didn't hurt me. He helped me." He's fully aware that his perception of Nick might be skewed.

Aaron's look turns thoughtful, studying Derek more closely. "We know."

Derek knows he might should have kept that to his self, arguing in Nick's favor, but he couldn't help himself. He quickly asks something else, something that will make it seem like he's just trying to take stock of his situation. "The Gallery?"

"We still don't know very much about them." It seems to steer Aaron away from the topic of Derek worrying over Nick and he's glad for that. He isn't so glad about what Hotch says next. "Actually, I'd like to meet with you a few times a week, talk to you about what you remember of the Gallery."

Well, he'd opened the door for that, hadn't he? Derek nods. "Sure."

"Derek it's going to be okay."

He hears Nick in his head. _You're okay, Derek. You're okay._

"I'm okay." Derek says with a quick nod.

One of the voices in his head adds: _We're okay._

 

* * *

 

A week later and Derek has set up the apartment to where it's comfortable enough for him. He went to Pet Smart and bought a large pallet. He found a fleece blanket to lay over the pallet and he sleeps, sits and kneels on that. He bought an enema bag and has taught himself how to use it. He thinks he found the same musk scented shower gel that Antoine used to use on the both of them. If it's not the same it's something similar. He's bought himself a plug although he couldn't find one with a tail.

When he's home alone he wears his collar and plug and nothing else. Sometimes, when the others come over unexpectedly or the Agents outside check in on him, he has to rush to pull on some sweat pants.

He buys a laptop and starts doing research, on the Gallery, on the name 'Antoine' in Canada, on the federal containment facility holding Nick. There's never very much information that he finds, at least not yet. Things are buried much deeper than that. But he tries, obsessively so, regiment and routine.

Derek never touches himself to please himself, he only cleans and puts the plug in his ass. It feels right. It feels good. It keeps him open and ready for when he finally gets back to his Master, when he gets Nick out of solitary confinement. He tells himself that both of those things will happen. He'll make them happen.

 

* * *

 

The first time Derek gets called into Quantico to speak with Hotch, he's nervous as can be. He doesn't want to be in that building where people know his face as it used to be, where he used to live a completely different life, but he goes anyway. The minute he steps into the old bull pin with all the desks in it, he knows that if he got back in here, he could find out more about the Gallery, more about Antoine, more about Nick.

He finds Hotch in his office and raps his knuckles on the door and waits. Once upon a time he would have just entered without any preamble. He's not that man anymore. He waits for permission.

"Derek, come in. Have a seat."

Derek enters Hotch's office, looks at the couch, at the floor. His knees want to buckle and he wants so badly to kneel on the floor. He makes himself sit on the couch. Aaron comes around his desk and joins Derek on the couch.

"How are you doing?"

"I'm okay." If he had a nickel for every time he says or thinks the words 'I'm okay'... every minute of every day. He still has to fight not to add a 'sir' to the end of his sentences.

"Think if you say it enough, it'll be true?" Aaron asks.

Derek smirks. "That's exactly what my new shrink said."

"I guess you don't quite have an opinion of him after only two sessions."

"He wants me to talk." Derek looks to Hotch. "Everyone wants me to talk."

Aaron stares at Derek for a long moment before speaking again. "You know we all just want to help you. That's all."

"I'm never gonna be the man I was."

"If anyone's asking you to be who you were before, I want to know who. As far as I know, no one's asking that of you."

Derek grows quiet, looking down at his lap. It's never so much about what people ask him out loud. It's the way they look at him, expectant and hopeful like they're looking for a sign of that other guy he used to be. Penelope, Reid, J.J, Rossi, even Hotch... they all do it.

"You've been through something horrific. I would be more worried if you weren't affected or altered in some way."

There was a time when Derek would have defined what he'd been through as horrific. But he isn't always sure if that's what he'd call it now.

"So you wanna talk about the Gallery." Derek prompts, already wanting to get back to his apartment, strip his clothes and kneel on his pallet.

"Yes, what do you remember of it?"

"The catacombs. The labs. The harem." Derek shrugs. "That's it."

"It's a big compound?"

"Yes, Sir." It's a slip that Derek doesn't catch even as he falls back into it.

Hotch lets it go as if it's expected when speaking about what happened to Derek. "Any defining landmarks around the compound?"

"No, Sir." Derek shakes his head. "Forest, mountains. There was a big fountain out front, a circular drive. Huge garage. Probably so the Mistress can house guests' transportation for her parties." He pauses, not really wanting to take the stability the harem has in that house away from them. Derek has no more stability, after all, and he's flailing. "I saw nothing for miles. No other structures. It's secluded."

"Do you remember anything between the house Carl kept you in and the compound?"

"Ketamine." Derek answers. "I was in and out of it. I was put in a box and I... I think I was transferred between different vehicles a few times. I don't really remember. It took a long time."

"The same between the compound and this... Antoine?"

"Yes, Sir." Derek shifts uncomfortably, scratching at his bare neck at mention of Antoine. He stands up. "I need... to get outta here."

Hotch stands too. "Okay. We'll leave it at that for today. Talk again in a few days? We'll just do a little bit every time we talk, as much as you can take at a time."

"Yes, Sir." Derek realizes he said the word this time and looks up to meet Hotch's gaze. The other man says nothing and Derek turns to hurry out of the offices.

He needs to be alone in the apartment. He needs his clothes off. He needs his collar on and he needs to kneel on the pallet. He needs to be a good pet even if he has no one to please.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the episode 8x18 - Restoration
> 
> What if Carl Buford didn't die? What if he lived and escaped from prison? This is going to be an AU where this happens. It's going to take Derek many places and get very dark and twisted. If you are triggered by non-consensual rape elements, this isn't the fic for you.
> 
> This is Part 2 of the A Lion Tamed Series. Please read Part 1 first.

Derek finds a sorely needed routine with his new shrink and Hotch. He meets with his shrink Mondays and Thursdays. He meets with Hotch Tuesdays and Wednesdays when the BAU team isn't on a case. This serves to get him out of his apartment, keep him from holing up inside by himself, hiding away. The weekends, he spends on the internet or lost in memories of where he would rather be for the most part. He tries to remember every detail of the harem and of Antoine.

The apartment complex that the Bureau has picked for him has a gym. Derek goes there every night before sleep, accompanied by his surveillance, and works out. He used to find solace in exerting the energy it takes to work out. Now he uses it to ease that ever-present unsettled feeling that not having sex leaves him with every second of every day.

He's going through the motions of being okay. Everyone wants him to be their definition of okay. But nothing is okay. Their definition of the word isn't his definition anymore.

_You can never go backward, Derek. You can only go forward._

He feels like everyone wants him to go backward and he can't. He just can't.

He goes through a month and a week like this until Hotch surprises him at one of their meetings. They're sitting on his couch in his office. Hotch has been asking about the men in the catacombs, the brutes. Derek is just starting to get uncomfortable and bow out, like he always does when things get too difficult.

"About Nick."

He'd almost been standing to leave, but at mention of Nick, Derek goes very still and looks at Hotch. He doesn't say anything. He waits.

"He's not talking to us. We've tried every tactic we can and we're running out of options."

Running out of options means they'll find some bullshit charge to stick on him to keep him in custody just in case they can get him to talk or turn. Derek knows this. They can't prove human trafficking, not if he's not talking and not if he's not giving them anything.

"What are you gonna charge him with?" He asks.

"If you pressed charges we could get him with kidnapping."

Derek immediately shakes his head. He doesn't say the word 'no', but he wants to. It's Nick. He can't bring himself to charge him with anything. Nick didn't kidnap him. By the time Derek was in the lab he wasn't even sure he was being raped anymore. It was just sex. He was being fucked by everyone. It was okay with Nick. Nick told him when things were okay.

The reaction is enough for Hotch to glean whatever he was looking for. He nods. "Will you come with me for a minute?"

Aaron is already standing and starting out of the room. Derek stands and follows. They go down the walkway to the war room. Derek sees Rossi, J.J. and Reid inside. Rossi steps aside and Derek feels his heart drop, his stomach feels hollow and like it's being rolled again and again. His breath catches in his throat.

Nick is sitting at the table, hands cuffed in front of him. Nick sits up straight in his chair, eyes going wide for the briefest of moments, when he sees Derek.

Derek's kneeling on the floor, not even aware of how or when he got there. "May I please you, Sir?"

He wants to beg Nick to take him away from here. He wants to plead with him to tell him what to do. He wants to confess all of the wrong things he's been doing and ask Nick to absolve him of those sins and make things better. He wants Nick to keep him safe.

Derek feels more alive than he has in so damn long. There's an invisible string connecting him and Nick, it pulls on him, beckoning him closer. Derek stays on his knees where he is, waiting for permission.

"Derek." Nick shakes his head, glances at the others in the room, then back at Derek. He shakes his head again.

Nick is trying to tell him something. 

From Derek's perspective, anyone else in the room had disappeared the second he saw Nick. Derek only remembers them when Nick looks at them. Here he is on his knees on the floor and they're all looking at him like... like he's a freak.

Derek is embarrassed. _So_ fucking embarrassed. His ass clenches around the plug he's wearing beneath his jeans. What would they say if they knew? A circle trying to fit where it doesn't belong anymore.

_Can't go backward. Can't go backward._

"Stand up." Nick's voice cuts into Derek's thoughts. Nick can always tell when Derek is getting lost in his own mind.

Getting to his feet, Derek tries to clear his mind, tries to make sense of why everyone is in here watching him, watching Nick, why Nick is in here. He wants to go to Nick. He wants Nick to tell him what to do. He wants to take Nick and get out of here.

"You're okay, pet." Nick glances at Hotch specifically, then back to Derek. "You're being used."

_I'm okay. I'm being used. I'm okay. I'm being used. I'm a good pet. I'm being used. I'm being used. I'm being..._

Derek looks to Hotch, his eyes on fire with anger, realization and accusation. "You set this up? You set _me_ up?"

"Derek. Wait." Rossi says, stepping forward and holding his hands up to try to calm Derek.

It's been a long time since Derek has felt the heat of anger. He'd turned that part of his self off at some point and hadn't been able to get it back. Now it's back in a violent flood of boiling rage.

"You're using me." He steps closer to Hotch, pointing to Nick. Nick, who's grinning, watching Derek's anger boil over. "To get to him?"

Hotch is maddeningly silent.

Derek's eyes narrow. "Or are you using him to get to me?"

"Derek, this man knows about the Gallery, about where it is." J.J. says.

Excuses. Excuses for throwing him into the lion's den. They forget that Derek is a lion too. Tamed, not broken. That's what makes him beautiful. That's what makes him lovable. That's why he's wanted and desired outside of this square world.

Looking around the room, Derek sees each one of these people with new eyes. Friends? No. He's a part of one of their cases now. That's it. If they're friends, Derek can't see it right now. His gaze lands on Nick and he steps toward him.

"Tell me what to do." He's crying. Fuck. He's crying again. "Please tell me what to do."

"Derek, you're okay." Nick only has eyes for Derek now. They stare at one another for several moments before Nick speaks again. "You're well cared for."

There's meaning behind Nick's words, but Derek can't get to it right now. He shakes his head. "They can't charge you with anything real. That's why they did this. To try to get you on something. To see how we'd react. They can't charge you with anything, Sir."

"I know." And Nick smiles then, the same smile Derek had grown accustomed to in the labs, the same smile that Nick gave him when he caught him in those private moments when Derek thought no one was looking into his glass-walled room. There's a hidden message in that too. "You're okay."

Hearing Nick say it makes it seem more like it's true, like they're not just words. Derek nods. "I'm okay."

Nick nods as if he's proud of him. Then he looks over to Hotch, his expression cocky and triumphant, as if he'd been put through another test and come out on the other end of it having beaten down his opponent. The question in his features asks 'got anything else?'.

"We're done." Hotch says.

"Wait." Derek steps in between Rossi and Nick as David stepped toward him. "What now?"

"Derek, you don't want to get in the way of this."

"You don't know anything about what I want." He bites back at Rossi, then glares at Hotch, looking for answers. "None of you do. What now?" He yells the last two words.

"Now he goes to prison. Derek, you need to calm down and step back." Hotch gestures to two agents out in the hallway who come in to help Rossi get to Nick and escort him out.

"No, wait. Wait!" Derek looks at Nick, begging him to make this right. Nick looks calm and unreadable, which, even by itself is a strength for Derek. That's just Nick being Nick.

_I'm well cared for. The harem is well taken care of. Once in the gallery, always in the gallery. They're coming for me. They're coming for me. Does that apply to Nick too?_

Derek gets it. He remembers Jai telling him that if anything goes wrong, just wait, because the Mistress would come for him. He nods at Nick, doing what he can to let him know that he gets it without saying the words aloud.

Nick winks at him. Then he's led out of the room. Derek follows the procession all the way to the elevators where they tell him to take the next one. He studies the strong line of Nick's back, the muscles in his broad shoulders, the limp he has since his leg was broken in the wreck. His buzz cut has grown out. He has dark curls. The elevator doors close on Nick.

"Derek."

Hotch is behind him. Derek doesn't turn and look at him, he's just so angry right now. He steps forward and presses the button to call the elevator back.

"Derek wait." Aaron's hand is on his arm. "What was he saying to you? What didn't we hear?"

The elevator doors open and Derek pulls his arm from Hotch's grip and stands inside. He only looks back at the other man once he's inside. The look he gives him is exactly what he's feeling; angry, hurt... and hopeful.

_I'm well taken care of. I'm a good pet. They're coming for me. They're coming for us._

 

* * *

 

With some distance, Derek can see how putting him and Nick in the same room and studying their reactions was a last ditch effort. He can see how it's no different than techniques he himself has been a part of in the past with the BAU, only he was the one orchestrating it, not a pawn. He gets why Hotch and the others did it. It still hurts.

Nick is going to prison. There's nothing Derek can do to stop that without betraying the people he cared about in that life from before. A part of Derek is still loyal to them. The other parts of him want to get as far away from them as possible. Maybe he can ask the Mistress to find a way to get Nick out. As powerful as she is, she has to have connections that run deep. Maybe she already has a plan for Nick.

Derek doesn't go back to his sessions with Hotch. He quits going to therapy. For a week he lives the life of a hermit, naked in his apartment, kneeling on his pallet, waiting. He wants to be just like this when they find him and take him back. If he's just like this they'll know that he's good and he can bypass the catacombs and the brutes, go straight back into the harem, then back to Antoine. Right?

He's worked the fantasy out in his mind in several different ways. All roads lead back to his Master.

Derek doesn't like this square world. He doesn't fit. The ground is uneven. Every corner is uncertain. Making decisions for himself is hard. Eating is hard. Dressing is hard. Everything is hard.

There's a knock at his door and Derek tries to ignore it. Whoever it is is persistent. Derek pulls on sweat pants and a tee, removes his collar.

At the door is one of his surveillance team. "You haven't been out of here in a week. Agent Hotchner wanted me to check on you. No gym anymore?"

Will going to the gym, getting out of his apartment, keep Hotch away? Derek isn't ready to see Hotch again after what happened at Quantico. "Uh... yeah, actually. Gym."

The Agent smiles and nods. "It'll be good for you."

At the gym, with his surveillance parked outside and visible through the glass walls, Derek goes through his routine. Like with everything in this square world, he's going through the motions. Derek is the only one in the gym at the early hour. Once the work day is over, Derek knows it will pick up. He likes to be gone by then. Less people to stare at him and wonder about his eyes.

In the middle of his workout a man comes in with a cart of freshly cleaned towels. He stacks them up on the towel shelves and takes the used towel bin with him. On his way out, he sets a towel beside Derek.

"Have a good day, pet." The man says as he leaves.

Pet. Derek feels his heart trip-hammer up into his chest. It takes all of his willpower to continue what he's doing with the weights. Make sure the Agents out in the car don't see anything abnormal. He gets through the work out, then sits up on the bench, reaching for the towel.

In the folds of the towel is a small note card with an address. Just an address. Derek slips the note card into the waistline of his sweats and then uses the towel to wipe perspiration from his skin. He tosses it into the used towel bin and heads back to his apartment.

_They're coming for me._


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the episode 8x18 - Restoration
> 
> What if Carl Buford didn't die? What if he lived and escaped from prison? This is going to be an AU where this happens. It's going to take Derek many places and get very dark and twisted. If you are triggered by non-consensual rape elements, this isn't the fic for you.
> 
> This is Part 2 of the A Lion Tamed Series. Please read Part 1 first.

As far as Derek is concerned, all he really needs is for the Mistress to get to him before Carl does. Carl Buford is a ticking time bomb that's inevitable. The man he is now, he isn't sure how he would hold up against Carl, certainly not as well as he had last time. The Mistress and his Master are two more walls between him and Carl. The wall of the FBI has holes in it. There are rules and red tape that put those holes there and make Derek vulnerable. Carl has no rules. Neither does the Gallery. The Gallery is safer, it's better.

If the Mistress gets to him first, she can get him back to Antoine. That's what Derek wants. He doesn't want to have to think and talk when he doesn't want to. He doesn't want to have to over-analyze everything that happened to him to the point of it driving him mad. He doesn't want to be confused anymore. He just wants to be taken care of.

Derek wants to be back in his stable in his stall that smells of hay and his Master's cologne. He wants things to be easy, for his Master to do everything for him and make all the decisions so that Derek doesn't have to. He wants Antoine to get him out of his own head space as he was so good at doing, bring him into the simple life of being his beautiful stallion where he was loved and adored and cared for in every way.

It takes a lot of willpower to keep from looking up the address on his laptop. Anything done on the laptop could be traced. Penelope Garcia is just that good. So what if they know he's been doing his own research? They won't be surprised by that.

The address is personal. It's secret. It's something that's _his_ , given to him by the Mistress. Derek kneels on his pallet for the rest of the day and memorizes it. He says the numbers over and over again in his mind, whispers them into an empty room, etches them into his heart and soul.

Getting past his surveillance detail is going to be difficult. It's the only reason that Derek waits for the fall of night. Once the sun is down though, the outside cloaked in darkness save for street lamps and lights from buildings, Derek dresses in jeans, a tee and boots. He puts on his collar, silver with the black onyx gems inlaid all along the center. A hoodie goes on over that, the hood pulled up, to hide the collar. The card with the address one it is shoved into one of his pockets.

_What am I doing?_

A voice pipes up in Derek's mind, a voice that makes him pause just inside his door looking out of the peephole at the car sitting outside his apartment. Logically, he knows he has a strange form of Stockholm syndrome. He knows he's been psychologically manipulated and indoctrinated.

_I shouldn't be trying to get back in. I just got out._

Every other voice, and there are several, tell that one voice to shut the fuck up. His Mistress gave him an address and he needs to be there. These are the people who know what Derek needs now.

_Nothing is okay here. Everything is wrong. Everything is hard._

Derek unlocks the door and goes outside. He points in the direction of the gym and the Agents in the car nod and start to move the car over there. If the men were paying attention, they'd notice that Derek is in jeans and boots, not in sweat pants and tennis shoes. Derek is counting on them not paying that close attention. And they aren't.

In the gym, Derek does a few pull-ups. He works the weights for just a bit before he slips into the gym bathroom. He climbs up onto one of the shelves and breaks out the window. He cuts his hand as he squeezes through the space barely big enough for him to fit. He makes it, but only just.

Then Derek is running. He's running so hard and so fast that he smiles, remembering how his Master had wanted him to eventually run for him outside of his house. Derek feels free. When he's with Antoine again, he'll run for him, put on a show for his Master's pleasure.

Derek keeps to alleyways and doesn't hail a cab. He knows all the tricks the authorities can use to track people with street cams and taxi services.

Imagine his surprise when the address takes him to a night club. The thud of the base is thumping even with the door closed. There's a line out of the door. The place is crowded. Derek doesn't do well in crowds anymore. He stares at the building for a long time before he moves to the back of the line to get in.

The line is slow, but Derek waits. Before he can get to the front, an arm circles around his waist from behind, a body pressing against his back. Derek doesn't fight it.

"Hello, Derek. Are you happy to see me?" With the thick South African accent, Derek already knows who he'll see if he turns around. It's Jai.

Derek exhales a heavy breath and sinks into the man behind him. "Yes, Sir."

Jai hums his approval, swaying from side to side with the sexy rhythm of the thud coming from in the club. Derek follows his lead, their bodies swaying together.

"Are you ready to return home?" Jai asks.

"Yes, please." Derek answers. There is nothing he wants more than to be on the path to home, back to his Master. "Please, Sir."

Jai turns Derek around, grips his chin in the same way Antoine used to do, and kisses him. Derek's lips automatically turn pliant beneath Jai's. Derek kisses him back. It feels good. It feels perfect. One circle finding another in a square world that doesn't understand them. Derek's cock is hard in his jeans. His ass clenches around the plug he wears.

"May I please you, Sir?" Derek asks.

"If it pleases our Mistress, then yes." Jai takes Derek's hand in his. "Come with me."

They get out of line and go around the side of the building to the back. A car waits for them. Derek doesn't recognize the driver. But in the passenger seat he recognizes the man as one of the guards from the Gallery. Derek and Jai slide into the back seat together. Jai holds onto Derek's hand and brings it to his lips to kiss it.

"I told you she would come for you. You are safe now, Derek. You are where you should be." Jai leans in, nuzzling at Derek's cheek. Derek feels good. He feels right. "You are safe."

The car takes them to a private air strip, pulling right up to the plane. Jai holds Derek's hand all the way up the steps into the aircraft. Inside the plane it's nothing like your normal passenger plane. This has a bar, rooms, couches... it looks like a lounge more than anything.

Lying on one large cushioned couch in the Mistress, dressed in a green blouse and black pencil skirt. Her heels have been kicked off to the floor and she speaks into a phone. There are two pallets on the floor near her and Jail kneels on one. Derek kneels on another.

The Mistress smiles at Derek. "Yes, but I want to evaluate him before he is sent to you."

_My Master. She's talking to Antoine. I'm going home._

Derek can't hide his relief. He'll be home soon. He'll be home in his stable and stall. His Master will keep loving him and Derek will love Antoine too. Maybe he already loves him. Maybe that's what this feeling is.

"Of course. He'll have a full medical as well. You know I am quite thorough. My pets are always well cared for."

_Nick. Nick said that. I'm well cared for._

The thunk of the airplane door closing catches Derek's attention for a moment. This is it. He's going home. Finally. Finally. He's going home.

"Derek."

The Mistress calling his name pulls him back to the present. "Yes, Mistress."

"You did well. I am very proud of you." She pours herself a glass of wine from a nearby bottle. The plane starts to move. "Do you wish to wear those clothes?"

"No, Mistress." He shakes his head.

"Very good. Take them off."

Derek rises and starts to disrobe. Jai does the same. Once he's down to only his collar and the plug, he kneels again.

The Mistress leans in, studying him. "You have had more upgrades. The kol around your eyes... tattoo, yes?"

"Yes, Mistress."

"The piercings are beautiful. They make you look even more fierce." Her gaze lingers on his collar. "That collar. Your Master gave that to you?"

"Yes Mistress. I wanted it, Mistress. They gave it to me."

"The FBI gave it to you?"

"The therapist I was seeing..." Which is FBI employed. "Yes, Mistress. The FBI."

She smiles and nods. "I promise to give it back to you, but right now I want you to take it off and give it to Brent here."

One of the guards steps forward to wait patiently.

Derek's fingers lift to the collar, gliding along the smooth surface before reaching to the back of his neck and unclasping it. He hands it over to Brent who takes it away.

"Very good." She nods her approval. "Is he not beautiful, Jai?"

"He is beautiful, Mistress." Jai answers.

"Almost as beautiful as you, my favored pet." She gives Jai a smile that seems more intimate, like it's something Derek should look away from. Jai is smiling at her in the same way and he does look away, over to where Brent has tools and is taking his collar apart.

Derek is so curious about why his collar is being taken apart that he misses what the Mistress says next. But suddenly Jai is pulling his attention back by kissing him. Derek loves being kissed. Jai kisses so well that it's so easy to kiss him back.

His body is alive and wanting, especially now, especially after so long of needing and going without. He reaches out to Jai, pulling him closer and deepening the kiss.

"Stop."

Jai instantly pulls back and looks to his Mistress. Derek watches Jai for a moment before he thinks to look to her.

"You are a wild thing. Fierce. But you submit, Derek." The Mistress says. "Do not try to take control from anyone ever again. You submit. Understood?"

"Yes, Mistress."

She nods at Jai and Jai kisses him again. Derek keeps his hands clasped behind his back. He needs permission to touch. He needs permission to do anything. He remembers that now. They kiss for a long while before Jai reaches behind Derek to grab his wrists, he lifts Derek's arms up above his head and guides him back to the floor of the plane even as the plane picks up speed and lifts off.

The position arches Derek's back up off the floor until Jai pulls his legs from where they're bent underneath him. Jai is between his legs, hands still holding Derek's hands to the floor above his head, grinding against him and Derek has to emit a groan and push his hips up against him. "Please, Sir."

"Whose pleasure, Derek?" Jai asks.

"The Mistress's, yours." Not his own. Never his own. If he trusts in others his own pleasure will eventually be gifted to him.

Jai glances to the Mistress for another cue. She nods at him and he turns back to Derek. "Keep your hands here. If you move them, we stop."

"Yes, Sir."

Without Jai holding his hands there, Derek has to concentrate on keeping them above his head. A hand is patted against his hip. "Up." Derek pushes his hips up off the floor. Jai stacks both of their pallets on top of one another and pushes them forward to elevate Derek's lower half.

Hands beneath his thighs push his legs up, folding him in half. His ass is on display.

"I am pleased that you wear a plug, Derek." The Mistress says, even as Jai licks up the back of one of Derek's legs, kisses at his ankle over the tattoo of a bar code, the Gallery's bar code. Jai kisses there, licks there, bites there.

_Once in the Gallery, always in the Gallery._

"May I fuck him, Mistress?" Jai asks, his breath warm and cool against the saliva dampened, sensitive skin of Derek's ankle. "For your viewing pleasure?"

"Would you like for Jai to fuck you, Derek?"

_Yes. God, yes. Please._

"If it would please you, Mistress." His own voice sounds desperate and needy. It's been so long.

"It pleases me." The Mistress says. "His pleasure is yours, Jai."

The plug is pulled from his ass, the slick put there by his own fingers making it easy for Jai to plow into him. That first thrust is so intense that Derek cries out, fisting his hands to keep them where they are. After that, Derek makes noises that he remembers making for his Master, for Nick. They're wickedly wanton sounds that seem to please the Mistress as she leans ever closer to watch her two pets together.

That friction in his hole is perfection, just as intense as he remembers it since Doctor Young's experiments, maybe even more so for his lack of giving himself his own pleasure for so long.

The Mistress leans back, hiking up her skirt and spreading her legs. Her fingers toy with herself, petting and pushing inside. Derek can smell the sweet scent of her sex from here.

_This is right. This is good. This is what I need, what I want. Finally. Finally._

Jai spills inside of Derek, leans down over him to grip Derek's cock in his fist. He kisses at Derek's lips, pumps into his ass. "Cum, Derek. For the Mistress. Show her the most important and private parts of you. Give those bits to her. Cum."

Derek cums on command, like a good pet. It's good and perfect and right.

 

* * *

 

Derek and Jai cuddle on their pallets on the floor. They've licked each other clean. The Mistress has been on the phone again, occasionally smiling over to the two piled together on the floor.

She's just ended a call when Derek's collar is brought back over to her. The silver and black is back in one piece.

"There was a tracker in it, definitely government issued." The guard says. "It's been destroyed. The collar was also wired up to emit an electric shock if breached past a certain point. I've seen them like that before. His Master probably disabled that when he sent the pet away."

_A tracker?_

Derek looks to Jai, suddenly afraid that he's in trouble even though he didn't do anything. "I didn't know about the tracker, Sir." He whispers.

"The Mistress knows that. She has been keeping track of you whether you realize it or not. You have been a good pet, Derek." Jai's hand slides over Derek's skin. "She knows."

"Derek come here." The Mistress says. "Let us get this back around your neck."


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the episode 8x18 - Restoration
> 
> What if Carl Buford didn't die? What if he lived and escaped from prison? This is going to be an AU where this happens. It's going to take Derek many places and get very dark and twisted. If you are triggered by non-consensual rape elements, this isn't the fic for you.
> 
> This is Part 2 of the A Lion Tamed Series. Please read Part 1 first.

The flight is a long one. The plane isn't commercial grade so they have to stop off to refuel. Derek and Jai eventually end up in a lavish bedroom in the back of the plane. Jai and the Mistress are together and Derek is made to kneel on a pallet and watch. It's both pleasurable and frustrating to watch them. When they're done, Derek is allowed to sleep in the bed with them on top of the sheets. It's warm and comfortable enough that he doesn't even care.

When the plane lands, they take a limousine to the compound. Jai and the Mistress sit together in the seat with Jai curled into her side while she texts people on her phone. Derek kneels on the floor of the limo as instructed. He likes that even here, there's no question of whether he's allowed on the furniture or not. He isn't. Not without express permission. It's that easy.

He wants to ask the Mistress about Nick. He wants to ask her about Antoine. There are several times when he almost does. But he makes himself stay quiet. He can't try to control any part of this situation outside of his own reactions to those around him. He'll be taken care of in all respects. He has to trust that.

They get to the mansion and Derek follows the Mistress, along with Jai, into the massive structure. A man is waiting with a black box. Derek knows that there's a collar in that box. He doesn't want to take off his Master's collar.

The Mistress opens the box and takes out the black collar. She puts it on Derek along with the collar he already has on. She leaves the black collar loose enough to accommodate his Master's collar. He gets to wear both. His Mistress has taken care of his concerns without his even having to say anything.

Derek gives the Mistress a grateful look. She smiles and cups his cheek. "These guards are going to take you for a quick check up before you settle in." She laughs lightly at the look on Derek's face. "Not in the labs, pet. My harem has their own physicians."

It's like she can read his mind. He has a moment to think she would make an excellent profiler. Derek pushes that thought aside. That's one of the other versions of himself, the one he's trying to silence because he complicates things the most, he confuses Derek the most, he makes Derek want to run and fight when he shouldn't.

That's the voice that had almost made Derek stay in the apartment instead of flee to his Mistress like a good pet should.

Derek has no doubt that most people will think him insane for choosing to come back into this mess. That voice in his head that's always contrary to the others thinks he's crazy. Every other voices, the voices born out of the need to survive, they know he's on the right track. Let everyone judge him. This is where Derek feels like things make the most sense.

He won't ever be okay the way others want him to be okay.

The clinic specifically used for the Mistress's harem is just like any doctor's office. It's on this floor level, back past the kitchens. Derek is led there an he goes through the most ordinary of check ups. Doctors take his blood pressure, check his eyes, nose and throat. They make him bend over to check his private areas. They x-ray his wrist that was broken and his ribs that were cracked in the crash. They draw four vials of blood, make him pee into a cup and then send him on his way.

There are no games there, everything is clinical and detached. The Mistress's harem is not for anyone's use unless she says so. Derek has been spared that. He can't decide whether to be pleased or disappointed. Yes, he's fucked up in the head like he never has been before.

He's led back through the house to a familiar hallway, to wide double doors where Derek is told to go inside.

"Hey, hey! Look who it is! Get that fine ass over here." Derek smiles, walking over to Dare who envelopes him in a big bear hug. "You can hug me back." Derek's hands unclasp from behind his back and he hugs Dare back, happy to do so.

Dare pulls back but keeps an arm around Derek's shoulders. "We missed you around here."

"I missed you too." It comes so easily here with these people. Derek remembers that other version of himself struggling to say the words to Reid. Everything is hard for that other version. Here, being this version of himself, it's easy. It's a relief from the struggle of the last half year or so.

Most of the other pets greet him as well. The two that Derek hasn't ever really spoken with keep to themselves, one of them closed in on himself in a corner, as always. The other one glares at Derek from afar. He's always glaring. He always looks like he wants to kill or fuck everyone he looks at.

Eventually Dare leads Derek into the dressing room. "Lily. Take a look."

Lily is in there peeling a tight cat suit from her slight frame. She's so small. Derek thinks he'd almost forgotten how small she is, especially when put next to him or Dare, Dare who is just a bit bigger than Derek is.

Ice blue eyes peek through her long platinum locks and then she's running over to Derek and flinging herself at him. Derek just barely catches her out of pure instinct. "We hear you returning." Her English is still stilted and misspoken. Derek likes that.

Lily slips from his grasp and reaches up to cup either side of his face. "Kiss, pet."

"Yes, Madame." He leans down to kiss at her lips. She kisses him back.

"Aw, that's just... gets me right here." Dare says, shaking his head dramatically and placing a hand over his heart. Then he arches a quizzical brow at Derek. "Why didn't I get is kiss."

"Would it please you for me to kiss you, Sir?" Derek asks, surprised at the teasing flirtation in his tone.

Dare scratches at the scruff on his chin. "Well now let me think about it."

"Dare..." Lily laughs and smacks the other man with the back of her hand on his arm. "Kiss him, Derek. Would please _me_."

"Yes, Madame." Derek nods, then leans in close to Dare, letting the other man meet him halfway. They kiss. Lily is pleased. Life is as it should be, at least as far as most of Derek is concerned.

 

* * *

 

For a week everything is perfect. It's the same routine Derek remembers in the harem. They wake and shower, bathe each other. They brush their teeth. Lily notices that things are difficult for Derek to do for himself. She, Dare and Jai take it upon themselves to help Derek through the most ordinary and simple of things as if they understand. Derek doesn't feel judged at all. He just lets them bathe him, give him his enema, brush is teeth and do his makeup and hair however they see fit.

One morning Derek asks Lily if she'll shave the sides of his head to fix his mane. His Master will want him to have his mane, Derek tells her.

She says she'll ask the Mistress and if she agrees, then Lily will do it for him.

Pets are called out for whatever reason, to give whatever pleasure the Mistress desires, and they come back. Routine. Derek has missed this.

The second night the entire harem is called on and brought into the dining room with the framed shadowboxes in them. Pets are put in the shadowboxes, fashioned and positioned into live erotica art. All of the pets are placed, all the boxes filled. But Derek and Dare are left out.

In the center of the dining room, the long dinning table has been replaced by a massive square one. Derek is instructed to get onto the middle of it with Dare.

"Yes." He hears the Mistress enter the room. "I love how his light skin plays off of Derek's. Do you understand what you are to do, Dare?"

"Yes, Mistress." Dark answers confidently.

"And Derek?"

Derek has no idea what he's supposed to do. The moment he thinks that, he has his answer. "I'm supposed to submit, Mistress."

"Precisely." She goes around the room, inspecting how the other pets have been placed.

The artist from last time places Derek and Dare how he wants them. Dare is up on his knees, one hand down with a hard grip on Derek's cock. Derek is down on his haunches, hands clasped behind his back and his ass resting on his heels, stretching up with his tongue out, the tip pressed to one of Dare's round, heavy breasts as if mid-lick. He isn't to move until he's told to.

Already, even before any guests have arrived, Derek's mouth is drying out in the same way it had in the catacombs when it had been held open. It's a struggle not to move, not to swallow, not to close his mouth to try to get his saliva glands working.

Dare's hair is long, tickling at Derek's brow as the other man looks down at him. Dare is the picture of domination. Derek is the picture of submission. Together, as guests arrive, they get fawned over, stared at, ooh'd and ahh'd over. Derek thinks they must be beautiful artwork, a centerpiece to ogle as the dinner party progresses.

It goes very much the same as last time; a five course meal, music, drinks, tinkering of glass, laughter and conversation around the table with Derek and Dare in the middle.

Then Dare gets some kind of signal and starts to move. He leans down and kisses at Derek's lips, thankfully getting his own saliva flowing, adding moisture to Derek's dry mouth. "Trust me." He whispers, making Derek think of Antoine. "Do as I say. Make this a show for them." Dare's thumb lightly caresses a corner of Derek's lips. "You and me are gonna make every person here jizz in their panties."

Dare grins and winks, then tells Derek to get on all fours. Derek does so, noticing that none of the plates have been cleared from the table. The scraps that weren't eaten are still on plates all around him and Dare.

One of Dare's strong hands pets at Derek's lower spine. "Front half down, arms at your side."

Derek dips down even lower, spreading his arms out to either side, his cheek pressed to the cool wood of the table with his ass in the air. He sees people settling down on chairs and settees to watch the perversions they've come to expect at the Mistress's gatherings.

The scrape of glass on metal, Derek isn't sure what it is. Moments later he feels Dare twisting the plug in his ass a few times. Derek can't help but react, his body shifting slightly to press his hips back into the twist. Dare chuckles and pulls the plug from Derek's ass.

Derek suddenly wants nothing more than for Dare to fuck him. He doesn't care that everyone in the room is watching. Without something in his ass, he feels empty. He _needs_ to be fucked. His body needs it. His mind needs it. His soul needs it.

_Look at what they've made of you. Get up and fight._

Derek pushes that voice away and tells it to shut up. He wants this. Maybe they made him into this, whatever he is now. Derek also chose it over the more difficult path of listening to that dissenting voice in his head. What does that say about him?

Surprising when it isn't hard, thick, meaty cock that is pushed into his ass. Instead it's something substantive, but slimy. Dare's thumb holds it inside, briefly plugging Derek's hole before moving aside and something harder and dryer is pushed inside. Derek catches sight of the plates on the table.

_Food. He's putting food scraps inside of me._

Without thinking, Derek starts to push his front half up.

"Nuh-uh-uh, be a good pet." Dare warns with a slap of a hand against Derek's ass.

Derek hesitates, then settles back down against the wood, shoulders and cheek on the table and his ass bared to the world and being stuffed with food. An embarrassed heat flushes his skin. Is this supposed to please the onlookers? Derek glances a hand at a crotch in one of the clusters of people and has his answer.

This is about everyone else's pleasure. Never his own.

He studies the plates. There's caviar, steamed vegetables, cuts of meat... maybe steak, potatoes and bread. All of it is being shoved up inside of him, causing his bowels to protest uncomfortably. He cramps so badly that he starts shifting forward and backward, trying to alleviate some of the pain. He makes soft little sounds of agony.

And still, Dare adds more and more, impossibly more, plate after plate. How does it all fit? When Derek thinks there can be no more, there's more. He hurts. He's so grateful for his enema this morning. He wants it to stop. But there's ever more food scraps stuffed inside of him.

Until there isn't. Until Derek is so lost to the intensity of the cramps that he doesn't even realize that Dare's thumb is no longer keeping the food plugged inside, his cock is. A tug on Derek's braids pulls him upright on his knees. Dare slides a palm over Derek's distended belly.

"I know it hurts. Fight through it. Make it pretty for them." Dare whispers into Derek's ear.

Dare reaches for half empty glasses of champagne flutes. He puts the rim of the glass to Derek's lips. "Drink."

Derek drinks. He drinks each glass that's put to his lips. So many glasses he loses count. His belly is full of champagne and he shakes his head when yet another glass is put to his lips. Dare tells him to drink. Derek keeps drinking. So much champagne until there is no more.

Then Dare starts to buck his hips up, fuck into Derek. Each push in causes a spike in the cramps. That pain does battle with Doctor Young's experimentation. Derek starts to feel pleasure too. How can he feel any kind of good right now? But he does. The more Dare moves, the more Derek has to move too, has to take that cock in and move with and against Dare to get him ever deeper inside.

Dare fucks him quick and hard, that palm ever present on his slightly rounded stomach. He never touches Derek's cock. He never gives Derek permission to cum. But Derek can tell when Dare reaches that point, his bucks turning erratic and disjointed. Dare spills inside Derek along with the food already in there.

"That's good. I'm gonna bend you over again. You're doin' good." Dare speaks quietly between heavy breaths as he catches his breath.

Derek is bent over again, told to put his arms out to either side again, ass in the air. Dare pulls out of him and Derek can feel the food slipping back out of its own accord. Dare's mouth is there at his ass, catching what he can and eating it. Derek has never, ever had someone's mouth there. It's strange in these circumstances. Sometimes he feels Dare's mouth and tongue. Sometimes he only feels the food slipping back out of him.

Finally, there's nothing but the sounds of others pleasing themselves in the room, the Mistress's guests having gotten off on the entertainment in front of them. Derek feels off kilter from the champagne. The world is fine. Everything is fine. Dare will take care of him.

"Come over here, Pet. Get on top of me, straddle my waist."

Once Derek has done this, Dare beckons him even closer until Derek is straddling just below his chest. Dare pushes his breasts together around Derek's cock. He looks up at him, grin mischievous and cocky. "Go at it."

Really? He can...

Derek only pauses a moment before he starts to move, fucking Dare's tits like his life depends on it. And maybe it does. Because he's hard and aroused and he doesn't hurt so much anymore and he needs it. Derek needs this.

Dare lets him go for a bit, letting Derek put on a show for the others, letting them see the way muscles move beneath skin, the way Derek needs to get off like a dog in heat. Then he tells him to cum. Derek does. Dare grins up at him. "Now come clean up my face."

Cleaning up Dare isn't so bad. It's like kissing away remnants of food and his own cum.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the episode 8x18 - Restoration
> 
> What if Carl Buford didn't die? What if he lived and escaped from prison? This is going to be an AU where this happens. It's going to take Derek many places and get very dark and twisted. If you are triggered by non-consensual rape elements, this isn't the fic for you.
> 
> This is Part 2 of the A Lion Tamed Series. Please read Part 1 first.

Derek's name isn't called on all that often. One time he's called into the Mistress's lounge to give a strange man a blow job. The Mistress watches the entire thing as Derek dutifully does as he's told. Then he's dismissed, simple as that.

His time in the harem is precious to him because he knows that eventually he'll be returning to Antoine. He plays with Lily's hair, braiding it and un-braiding it, combing is fingers through it, touching her when she wants him to, fucking her when she wants him to, sucking her when she wants him to. Lily moves like a dancer, smooth and artful in every way.

He cuddles with Dare, listening to him tell stories about cattle and horses that only a rancher would know. He wonders if that's a clue to Dare's past that the other man has trouble remembering. He wonders what kinds of things were done to Dare that make his past hard to remember. Or is Dare just so far removed from it, had so much done to him, that his coping mechanism wasn't to fracture, but to forget.

Every night he feels warm, understood, accepted as he is and not alone. He finds solace in the harem. Derek knows he'll be evaluated for as long as it pleases the Mistress before he's sent off to his Master. She'll send him to Antoine when the time is right.

Derek is learning patience. He's never been very good at patience before.

His trio of friends have asked about his Master. Derek has told them about Antoine, about all of the ways Derek messed up and Antoine forgave him, about how his Master loves him and he'll be back with him soon. They seem to like listening to him tell the story about his escape through the window and subsequent capture the most. He tells it three times and will probably tell it again.

One of the guards comes in one day and calls out Derek's name. Two days prior, Derek had been told to leave the plug out of his ass and not prepare himself with lube. He hopes it's another blow job. Or maybe he can please the Mistress herself. He glances to Jai, who nods encouragingly to him, then he stands and starts to the door. Halfway there, another name is called. Bran. Derek looks back to see the angry pet get to his feet. Derek wonders if he'll be killed or fucked.

Derek follows Bran out of the room and through the hallways. The Mistress is in the lounge on her phone. Derek and Bran kneel on pallets.

"One moment." She says to whoever she's speaking with.

"Bran, my pet." She nods from Bran to Derek. "He is here for your pleasure."

"Thank you, Mistress." It's the first time Derek has ever heard him speak. His voice is deep and gruff.

"What are you to do, Derek?" She asks him.

"I'm to submit, Mistress."

"Very good." She moves away and continues her phone conversation.

Derek tries to listen in, wondering if she's speaking with Antoine. Derek wants his Master to know he's being good, or at least trying to be good and perfect so that he can go back to him. He doesn't get to listen in for very long though because Bran is hauling him up to his feet by his hair. Derek's hands instinctively go to his scalp because it _hurts_. A hand at his back between his shoulder blades shoves him against the wall face first.

Everything in Derek is telling him to fight. This rough treatment is too much like the basement with Carl and his thugs. It's too much like the catacombs. His wrists are grabbed and pulled above his head, pushed into the white and gold embellished wall.

Bran speaks into his ear from behind. "Leave them there. I'm gonna play with this pretty pussy of yours. Whore." The word resonates in Derek's mind.

_Whore. Whore. Whore. I'm a whore. Oh god, Sarah... No, Sarah, no. I'm a whore, Carl. Please, I'm a whore._

Derek's hands ball into fists, his breath coming quick and hard as cock is shoved into him dry and rough. He cries out. The Mistress still speaks on her phone in the background. Derek has tried so hard not to think about what happened with Sarah, how Carl killed her because Derek wouldn't say the word 'whore', how he'd killed her even with Derek on his knees saying it again and again, begging him.

Tears fill his eyes. Because of Sarah. Because of how much Bran ramming into him dry hurts. Because his cock is still getting hard from it. Derek hates himself right now. He thought he'd quit hating himself in the labs with Nick, but no... he just buried that hate behind another fractured shard of himself.

Right now that hate is back in full force.

"Oh, come on, pretty little cunt. Call yourself a whore." Bran says.

Derek is silent. Bran fucks him into the wall. It hurts. His hands are fisted so tight against the wall above his head that they're cramping. He has to fight to keep them in place and not slam them into Bran's face.

"Say it, cunt."

_It's not just a word. I'm a whore. I'm a whore. Maybe I've always been a whore._

A hand fists in his hair, pulls his head back and slams it forward into the wall. Derek's head spins. Bran hisses behind him. "Say it."

"I'm... I'm a whore. Sir." He says it. Because eventually he'll get to go back to Antoine. If he turns around and punches Bran, loses his cool, he'll get sent to the catacombs.

"Louder."

"I'm a whore."

"Louder!"

"I'm a whore!" He screams, something inside of him breaking and cracking. Will it fit back together later when he tries to fix it?

_I'm a good pet. I can get to Antoine if I'm a good pet._

What Bran is doing reminds him of being used when he used to call it rape. Derek doesn't want it. He wants it to stop. If he tries to make it stop then there will be consequences. Cause and effect, his Master has told him.

_Cause and effect, Derek. You understand, don't you?_ , Antoine had said.

"How's your pussy feel? Does it feel good, Derek?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Say it."

"My pussy feels good, Sir." Humiliation sweeps through him. He's a man. He doesn't have a pussy. Saying it is embarrassing. He wants to show Bran that he can fight. But maybe that's the entire point, knowing he can fight and not doing it, submitting.

"And you're a what?

"I'm a whore." Derek grinds the words out in a way he hasn't in some time, like he's fighting them, but saying them anyway.

Bran laughs, it's a horribly wicked laugh. One of Bran's hands snakes around between Derek and the wall and squeezes at Derek's neck, choking him.

_Breathe through your nose._

Derek breathes through his nose. Only a second hand is suddenly squeezing his nose closed. He can't breathe. He's being fucked into a wall and he can't breathe. Derek panics. He panics and tries to fling Bran off. Bran has the upper hand though and holds Derek in place with the initial attempt.

He tries again, slipping a leg back between Bran's legs, ready to trip him up with a judo move if he can. He thinks of the catacombs. The catacombs are further away from his Master. No. No.

_The Mistress won't let him kill me. I have to submit. I have to submit. I'm a whore. I have to submit. I have to..._

The room fades away.

 

* * *

 

When Derek wakes up he's in the harem's room on the expansive pallet they all share. He's on his side, leaning back against Dare. He can feel both cock and breasts behind him. Lily is in front of him with her eyes closed, hands gently sliding back and forth over his hip. Jai sits behind her, fashioning an intricate braid pattern through Lilly's platinum hair.

It's Jai who notices that Derek is awake. "How do you feel?"

_I'm a whore. I hate myself. I'm a whore._

"I'm okay." Derek's voice doesn't work. It's hoarse and scratchy. His neck hurts. His nose hurts. His head hurts. His ass hurts. But he's okay. Nick would tell him that he's okay. Derek would believe it. Derek wishes Nick were here.

Lily sits up straighter and she pets gently at Derek's cheek. "Come. We shower you."

"Yeah, man." Dare says, kissing the top of Derek's head. "You smell like asshole."

Leave it to Dare to get a smirk out of Derek right now when he's in so much pain. Speaking of the asshole, when Derek sits up, he finds Bran over in his usual spot, kneeling, not saying a word, sending a death glare out into the void.

The Mistress has a pet of every flavor, it seems.

 

* * *

 

Over the next few days, the bruises on Derek's face and neck heal. He gets his voice back. He tries to get his mind right again. Pushing away those memories of what happened to Sarah is hard. Derek has to do it though. Survival. Everything is survival.

The Mistress enters the room one day. She's in another silken blouse, another pencil skirt and high heels. This has never happened before while Derek has been here. She's never entered the harem. He's told later that it so rarely happens that every pet is surprised when it does.

All the pets line up at the edge of the pallet on their knees. Derek follows suit. She walks the line of them, pausing and petting and talking to each pet for a few moments. Everyone gets attention. Everyone seems to preen.

Derek isn't sure whether he preens or not. But he appreciates not being left out when she comes by him and then moves on.

After she's made the entire round of them, she moves across the room and sits on one of the lounges. "Derek. Here."

Derek's heart leaps into his throat. Is this it? Is this where he gets sent to Antoine? Why else would she call him out in front of all the others? He stands and moves over to her. A guard places a smaller pallet on the floor in front of her and Derek kneels on it.

"Your wounds are healing nicely."

The wounds from Bran, she means. "Thank you, Mistress."

"I saw you fight the other day, when I called you and Bran in for my pleasure."

Oh. Derek's brow furrows and he dips his head. What can he say? He had momentarily fought against what Bran was doing with him.

"I also saw you control yourself. I saw you fight your own inclinations. I am proud of you."

Derek exhales a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and looks back up to the Mistress. "Thank you, Mistress."

"You were injured in your transport from your Master to us. I know it was the fault of no one but I want to apologize for that. I don't like that you had to go backward into a world you are ill prepared to go backward into." She sounds so sincere, like she truly doesn't like that Derek was flung back into a past life of his, like she doesn't just not like it because it put her and this entire operation in danger.

The Mistress tilts her head, studying Derek. "Your Master did not want to let you go. He did the right thing but it was difficult for him."

Antoine. She's talking about Antoine. Derek wants to go to him so badly. He thinks he can smell hay.

"You miss him?"

"Yes, Mistress." Those two words are filled with more emotion, more longing, than he's ever put into them before.

The Mistress smiles softly, sadly. "He said you were a beautiful stallion. Antoine loved you."

Loved? Derek's lips part to ask the question. He closes them again. Then he asks anyway. "Loved, Mistress?"

"You brought him great joy. He battled cancer some years ago and beat it. I'm afraid he didn't beat it this time."

There it is. There's that floor beneath Derek falling out from under him. Derek is still kneeling here but he feels himself spiraling down.

Falling... Falling... Falling...

The world before him turns blurred and fuzzy. Tears are in his eyes, escaping down his cheeks. He looks down to the floor. He wants to curl in on himself like the pet that's always in that far corner. He wants to be alone and hide. He wants to die.

The Mistress is saying something. Derek can't hear her. The world sounds hollow, like being under water. Just as well, he doesn't need or want to hear anything.

She gets down on the floor in front of him, down on her knees with him. He's being held by the Mistress. Everything is quiet.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the episode 8x18 - Restoration
> 
> What if Carl Buford didn't die? What if he lived and escaped from prison? This is going to be an AU where this happens. It's going to take Derek many places and get very dark and twisted. If you are triggered by non-consensual rape elements, this isn't the fic for you.
> 
> This is Part 2 of the A Lion Tamed Series. Please read Part 1 first.

Everything. Everything. _Everything_ since the crash has been about getting back to the last place where Derek's world made the most sense, back to where he was last at peace with who he's become. Antoine and the stable and Derek's stall and Antoine's bed, things had made sense there. Since the crash, Derek has had a mostly clear path, or paths. All paths had led back to his Master. Now everything is gone.

For the next several days, he doesn't do or say much. His name is never called to pleasure the Mistress. Dare, Jai and Lily lie with him on the pallet. They try to talk to him but Derek can't figure out what to say. The conversation is always one-sided.

That dissenting voice in his head is louder than it has been, all the others have quieted down.

_Stupid. Stupid for coming back here. Fucking stupid, Derek. What if we never get out now? Where do we go from here? Fucking stupid. Look what they've done to us._

Eventually the entire harem is called out for another gathering. Derek is put in one of the framed shadowboxes. He's told to face away from the room and bend over with his face to the floor, to reach back and pull open his ass cheeks. Derek mechanically does so. All the better. He doesn't have to look at any of the people here ogling him. He doesn't have to think about it too much. He just settles into it and closes his eyes.

He hears his Mistress murmuring her approval behind him, feels her hand on the round of his buttocks. Then she moves on.

He has no idea what happens in the room that night, which pets are later called on to perform for the masses. Derek closes his eyes and blessedly zones out.

He cries a lot. He can't seem to stop for some time. It's weeks later when the tears start to dry up, only coming back at the most random of moments rather than a constant flow. Someone will say something and it will remind him of Antoine. He thinks he smells musk or hay and the tears come. Otherwise, he's just quiet and detached.

_Nothing is okay. We're not okay. We're not okay._

Where is Nick to tell him that he's okay? Where is Antoine to make things okay? Why is he here? He shouldn't be here. Should he?

_We're not okay. Never should've come back. Fucking stupid._

Derek stands longer than he should in front of the mirrors and holds conversation with himself.

"We'll be okay. The Mistress will take care of us."

_We don't belong with the Mistress. We belong at home where we were getting help._

"That's not home."

_That is home. Those people care about us. We were getting help for this mess up here._

"Too many expectations."

_Not enough expectations. We were left alone too often. They didn't know the extent of the damage. We can tell them, make them see, make them help. We have to get out of here before she sends us to someone else. We have to fight._

"Who will she send us to? Our Master is dead." He chokes on the words, starts to cry again. Damn it. Will he ever stop crying?

_Hey._ His own reflection calls to him. Derek looks up through a blanket of tears. _We're okay. We can get out of here._

"We can't. We shouldn't. The catacombs. We're not okay."

"Derek?" A different voice slices through whatever conversation he'd been having with himself.

Jai is standing behind him with a hand at the small of Derek's back. His fingertips trace light circles there and Derek leans back into the touch. "Who are you talking to?"

Derek looks back to his own reflection and shakes his head. "No one. Just myself."

 

* * *

 

_It's so damn crazy that you loved him. You realize that's insane, right? We're insane. We both know that's called Stockholm syndrome. We were abducted. He **bought** us. Like we're a thing. Not a person._

Derek stares at himself in the mirror again. He's had his shower and his enema. He's in the dressing room, kneeling on a pallet and adding mascara to his lashes.

"He loved us." He whispers, pushing back new tears.

_Maybe. That doesn't make it right._

"Then why did it feel right?" Derek twists the cap back on the mascara and picks up a tube of glittery lip gloss.

_Look at what's been done to us. We're better than this. We don't blindly accept. We fight. Come on, fight!_

Derek's brow furrows, his eyes narrowing at his own reflection. He sets the lip gloss back into the bin, stands and leaves the room without putting any on. Baby steps.

 

* * *

 

Derek is in the shadow box again, this time with Lily. Derek is lying back, legs spread and open for the dinner guests' pleasure. Lily's slight frame is on top of him with her back to the room, Derek's cock inside of her.

As much as he tries to zone out here, Lily keeps gently rubbing at his stomach just in front of her where their bodies are joined together and where the dinner guests can't see the movement. She smiles at him. Derek tries to smile back but his lips aren't sure how to make a smile happen anymore. They stay like this for hours, locked in their own private and silent conversation.

Derek tells Lily again and again that he isn't okay.

Lily tells Derek that he'll be okay, he isn't alone.

This goes on for the several hours that the dinner party lasts. Without an actual word ever being spoken, Derek finds himself glad that he can still hold conversations with people who aren't himself. Sometimes you don't need words. Sometimes words are overrated.

 

* * *

 

Derek is sitting alone in one of the corners of the harem's room. Dare and Lily have been called out to please the Mistress. Jai is combing the hair of the slave that's always curled up in the other corner.

_Okay, so we've been reconditioned, fragmented... I know, I know... we were surviving the only way we could. But we're basically fucked up in the head. We have to get past that or work around it._

"Why don't you just leave me alone for a little while." Derek whispers. This voice has been talking to him more and more lately. He wants him to shut up. He isn't as good at shutting him up as he was before.

_Nope. We gotta find a way out. There's always a way._

"I'm tired. I fought to get back to our Master. I'm tired."

_You fought for the wrong things. We can get out of here._

"Please."

_No. You go rest and let me take control for awhile. I get it. You're tired. I'm tired too. We're tired. Let me fight for you. Come on. Let me out._

"Stop!" Derek screams, hands slipping to his head. "Just... leave me alone!"

There's a moment here where Derek is still in his own mind. But then he comes back into himself and looks around the room. The other pets are looking at him. The guards at the door have stepped forward.

Bran, of all people, is standing and sauntering over to him. "Finally got to you, huh?"

"What?" Derek says, still a little bit slow and out of it.

Bran glances at the guards with a grin. "I've been fuckin' with him for awhile. Guess he finally broke."

The guards seem to settle back into their stations by the door.

Bran kneels in front of Derek. "You gotta stop that shit. The Mistress will send you to the labs to _help_ you find some equilibrium." He puts a hand in Derek's hair and cants his head back to that he's looking up at him. "You hear me?"

"Yes, Sir."

A quick nod, then Bran sits down next to Derek, shoulder to shoulder. Had Bran just actually helped him? Did that just happen? Derek closes his eyes and tries to find a quiet space in his mind. It's easier said than done.

 

* * *

 

The combative voice shuts back down for several days after that. The idea of going back to the labs, of being even more altered, of losing his memories like Dare has, has scared him back into silence. Derek is thankful. Things get easier. He settles back into routine. He doesn't linger too long at mirrors. He's not okay, but it's better.

It's mid-morning when Derek's name is called. He stands up and starts for the doors, but the guards tell him to say goodbye.

_What's happening? Where are we going? Fuck._ There's that voice.

Saying goodbye to Dare, Lily and Jai is harder than it had been before. Derek isn't sure he wants to leave. He'd rather just fade away here on the pallet, surrounded by warm bodies and safety.

"Hey man, you're gonna be all right. Just do what your Master says." Dare says.

Lily is crying, holding onto Derek like she can keep him here of just sheer will. "Will miss Derek. Please hug."

Derek hugs Lily back. Dare grips his chin and kisses him over Lily's shoulder.

Jai steps in close and pets a hand over Derek's braids, down over his shoulder. He leans in close to whisper. "I've heard that you will stay with us for good if something happens with this new Master." Jai always seems to have the most insight to the Mistress and her plans.

"While I hope all goes well for you," Jai continues. "A part of me hopes you will return to us." He hugs Derek tightly, then steps back.

Even Bran comes over to him and baps him hard on the side of the head. "Whatever's goin' on up here? You fight it. Find the right voice and fight for it."

_Which voice is the right voice?_

Derek is led to the foyer where the Mistress stands waiting for him. She smiles at him. A pallet is already on the floor and Derek kneels on it.

"It is time. I have kept you here for too long already. Your new Master grows impatient." She says, leaning down to unclasp the black collar from his neck. Antoine's is still there. Derek is glad for that. He needs it.

She cups his chin, making him look up. "Listen to me. I know that you are unwell, that your mind is scattered and your heart is hurt. You must work past that. Your new Master will help you. Do you have any questions?"

"Mistress, may I stay here?"

She smiles and shakes her head. "Promises have been made, money exchanged."

"I'm... not ready."

"Do you think that matters, Derek?"

Derek shakes his head, looking down to the checkered floor again. "No, Mistress."

"Whose pleasure, Derek?"

"Yours, Mistress."

"And your Master's."

"And my Master's pleasure, Mistress." He can't help the way his throat chokes on those words, the way his eyes tear up at those words. His Master is Antoine. Was Antoine. Will always be Antoine.

The Mistress smoothes a hand back over Derek's braids. "I have someone here to help ease the journey and your stay with your new Master."

She nods at someone and Derek looks up to see Nick stepping forward. He inhales a sharp breath. Nick is back in cargo camo pants, a tight tee that shows off his muscles and combat boots. His head has been shaved. He has a light dusting of a beard. He walks with only the slightest of limps now.

How had she done it? How did she get him away from prison, from the FBI, from the US government? Does it matter?

Brown eyes look at him and Nick grins. "You're okay, pet."

No. It doesn't matter how she did it. Nick is here. Nick is going with him. He's not alone.

"He will be your guard. I made him a part of the transaction with your new Master for you." The Mistress says.

_Nick will make things okay. Nick will keep us safe. Nick cares about us. We'll be okay. Someday we'll be okay again._

It takes Nick glancing to the Mistress and back to Derek for Derek to realize he should say something. "Thank you, Mistress." He looks up to her, so much gratitude in his eyes. "Thank you."


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the episode 8x18 - Restoration
> 
> What if Carl Buford didn't die? What if he lived and escaped from prison? This is going to be an AU where this happens. It's going to take Derek many places and get very dark and twisted. If you are triggered by non-consensual rape elements, this isn't the fic for you.
> 
> This is Part 2 of the A Lion Tamed Series. Please read Part 1 first.

The presence of Nick is strangely calming to Derek. It gets him through a plane ride, an RV ride, another plane and another RV, all without his having to be restrained in any way, all without a protest from him. He's thankful that he isn't put in a box. He's thankful that Nick is free, that Nick is here with him. He's thankful that he still gets to wear Antoine's collar.

They've barely spoken a word. Derek is okay with that. He doesn't really have anything to say right now. He's tired; emotionally, physically, psychologically. He's just so damn tired. That weariness makes it all the easier to hand over control to Nick and just go into that place of nothing-ness he's been slipping into since he'd heard about Antoine's death.

He's in that nothing place, they're in the second RV, when Nick sits down next to where  
Derek kneels on the floor. One of Nick's hands cups the back of Derek's neck and massages, his touch strong and sure.

"I'm sorry about your Master." Nick says and Derek looks up to him. Nick stares at him for a long moment before speaking again. "The fire's gone from your eyes. I don't like that."

Derek looks quickly away. He doesn't want to disappoint Nick. He also doesn't know how to ignite that fire though. The only one with any spark to him is the one voice he wants silenced, the voice that tells him to do things that would get him in trouble.

Nick leans down, his elbow on one of his knees. His other hand still touches Derek. "I know you're hurting. I know you're lost. I know your brain is going every direction and you can't control it. Hopefully your new Master will be able to help you. He's aware of your history. He's aware of everything you've been through. He still wants you with him. That's something, right?"

Is it something? Derek doesn't know. But he nods for Nick. "Yes, Sir." He pauses. "Sir, you could have me. I could be yours." He has no idea where the words come from, another one of those voices in his head. That makes the words no less true, no less genuine and hopeful.

Nick smirks, thumb smoothing against Derek's lips. Derek's lips automatically open to suckle on his thumb, his ass clenches around the plug inside. "Tempting. I think a part of you is already mine. But your Master comes first. He always comes first, you got that, Derek?"

Nick pulls his thumb from Derek's mouth and his knuckles rest under Derek's chin, tilting his head up. "You got that?"

"Yes, Sir."

"You're okay. Say it."

"We're okay."

"Not we."

"I'm okay, Sir."

"Good pet." Nick reaches into his pocket to withdraw a black blindfold. "I'm gonna put this on you now. You're gonna trust me."

"Yes, Sir." Derek tilts his head up of his own accord and Nick blocks out the world, tying the blindfold at the back of Derek's head and positioning it over his eyes so that Derek can't see a thing.

 

* * *

 

Derek wears the blindfold for what feels like a long time before the RV stops. For awhile they sit there before the door is opened and Nick is grabbing his arm and hauling him up. 

"Time to go. Be a good pet." He leads Derek out of the RV. Beneath Derek's feet are smooth stones. The sun shines warm on his nakedness and Derek wishes he could see it. His hands tighten their grasp on each other at his back as Nick leads him along the stones. The stones change to some kind of wood or laminate. Then to carpet.

They go up a flight of stairs and Derek is reminded of Antoine leading him around blindfolded and telling him 'step, step, step' with each step up and down. Going up and down stairs blindfolded demands trust in someone else.

There's a beeping sound and then sliding doors. They step forward. Sliding doors again. The floor moves. They're in an elevator. When the elevator stops, they get out on carpeted floor. Derek lets Nick lead him.

"Kneel." Nick tells him when they stop.

Derek kneels on the carpet and waits. There's someone talking in this room, on a phone. His accent is clipped and quick. It reminds him of Antoine's dialect that Derek could never properly place. The voice comes closer to him. Is to his left side. At his back. To his other side. The man is walking around him.

Finally, the call ends and Nick removes Derek's blindfold. The room is softly lit, but it seems brighter than it is after seeing nothing but dark. As his eyes clear, he sees that Nick is to his side. Before him is a man with dirty blond and graying hair, brilliant blue eyes. Derek has seen him before.

Those blue eyes pierce through him. There's a man standing next to him, tall and broad, dressed in a suit, a guard, perhaps, like Nick.

"Do you know who I am?" The blue-eyed man asks.

Should Derek remember this man? He wracks his memory, looking for those icy blue eyes and finding nothing. Where has he seen him before?

"You were somewhat under duress when you saw me last. At the Mistress's home. You were a work of art. My brother bought you."

His brother. This is Antoine's brother. Derek remembers both men looking up at him his first night in the Mistress's gallery.

"I'm Mikael."

This is one of those moments that creeps up on him. Derek's eyes fill with tears. Antoine is dead. He's dead and he's not coming back. Derek is falling... falling...

Mikael has leaned over, his fingers snap sharply in front of Derek's face. It serves to snap Derek out of it. And strangely enough, being snapped at like that gets him to glare up at Mikael.

The older man smiles. His lips are fuller than Antoine's were, but still the smile reminds him of his former Master. "Ah, there you are, you wild beast. As long as the lion is still in there, even a little bit, I can work with you."

Derek feels the heat of anger slip out of him as quickly as it had hit him. 

Mikael looks at him, sighs as if Derek is going to be the most frustrating thing to 'work with', then shakes his head and looks at the other man in the room with him. "I cannot believe that I'm doing this."

"You promised your brother. You never could say no to him." The man says with a shrug. "I can believe it."

Mikael hrms and extends a hand to Nick. "You must be Nick."

"Yes, Sir." Nick shakes his hand.

"This is Zane, my personal guard. You'll be working with him."

"Understood."

"I am always your first priority should anything go wrong. Derek is second."

"Of course, Sir."

"In regard to everything else, Derek and I are always first."

Nick nods. Mikael sighs and claps his hands, rubbing them together. "Alright then. Zane, update Nick. Get him armed and dressed in something more suitable."

The two men leave. Derek's gaze follows Nick all the way to a side room connected to this room. He looks around for another door, maybe a door to a stable and a stall, his stall.

"Derek. Heel."

Heel? Derek has no idea what that means or what he's supposed to do. Lack of knowledge and great confusion leave him indecisive, and staying where he is.

"My brother never taught you to heel? Let me guess, he led you around with reins and tack." Mikael smirks and shakes his head, both amused and unimpressed. "Follow me."

Derek stands and is led to a seating area beside an unlit fireplace. The set up is similar to the sitting area in Antoine's bedroom. There's a pallet there by a chair. Derek looks to Mikael who nods at him so Derek kneels there. 

Mikael practically melts into the chair, an elbow resting on one of the arms, one leg crossed over the other. Icy eyes study Derek.

Derek studies Mikael.

"I like that you don't look away." Mikael finally says. "But your eyes have changed. They've lost their edge. I know that Antoine didn't do that to you. He loved your eyes. Is it that you miss him?" Derek doesn't really want to talk about it. He hesitates. "Answer me."

"Yes, Sir." As with every time he thinks of Antoine, his eyes glaze over with tears.

"I am your Master and you will address me with proper respect." Mikael snaps. "Do you miss my brother?"

"Yes, Master."

Mikael draws a deep breath and nods. "So do I. He was my best friend. Although, he spent every last moment of his life speaking about you. Do you think that was pleasant for me?"

"No, Master." But now Derek wants Mikael to keep talking. He wants to know how Antoine's last moments were. Was he comfortable? Was he cared for? Did he have someone to warm his bed with him and please him?

"It wasn't pleasant at all. He was distraught when he was told of the wreck, that you had been lost to the Gallery. I spent almost every day and night in contact with the Mistress for him. Asking about you, making demands for you, it was all about you." Mikael pauses. "He loved you. Did you love him?"

Derek hesitates on the complicated question. Did he love Antoine? Yes, no, maybe, yes, maybe... "I think so, Master."

"I'm told your mind has been split. Antoine knew about it. So did the Mistress." Mikael picks up a pipe from a side table and lights it. Sweet tobacco scent fills the space. A part of Derek wants to lean in and smell Mikael's cologne. Is it like Antoine's? "It must make your feelings about all of this, my brother included, very confusing. Do you know when the split happened? That's been a question of contention between all of us."

When had it happened? Derek has thought about that before. He thinks it started in the catacombs, some of it when the brutes had used a knife to pry his mouth open and put metal inside, some of it when the baseball bat was shoved inside of him and left there for hours. He's made every kind of concession since then, being good enough to get to the next thing until that voice that wanted to fight was silenced.

Surviving the catacombs had laid the foundation. But when had the break _really_ happened?

"In the labs, Master. After the catacombs." Derek says. "I looked in a mirror and..."

"And you didn't recognize yourself." Mikael finishes for him with a nod. "You hear voices in your head?"

"Yes, Master."

"Do you hold conversations with them?"

"Yes, Master."

"Is there a voice that's angry? A voice that wants to fight?"

Derek swallows hard, wondering if this is a trick questions somehow. Will he get in trouble if there's still some dormant part of him that wants to fight all of this? "Yes, Master."

Mikael leans in, cool eyes trained on Derek. " _That's_ who I want to talk to. Can you give him to me?"

On command? Derek quickly shakes his head. "N-no, Master. I'm sorry."

"Earlier when I snapped my fingers in front of your face and you looked up to me. That was him, just for a second. You might not have realized it, but it was that part of yourself that's been hiding. You can't bring him forward?"

_Let me out. Come on. I can get us through this. I can get us out of this. We have to fight._

"Stop." Derek whispers, looking down to the floor.

Mikael leans back in his seat, watching Derek for awhile. smoking his pipe and considering what to do next. "Let me tell you what I do here, Derek. I train slaves. Or, well, I have a Master's circle who train slaves. It's been some time since I've trained one myself. I've seen every flavor dysfunction in a slave. I can read you better than you can read yourself. I can't give you what you want. Nothing will bring Antoine back, and believe me, I wish I could. But I can give you what you need, and try to straighten out what's happening in your mind in the process."

His new Master's phone rings and Mikael looks at the caller id before answering it.

Is that what he is now? A slave? There's a part of him that hates that. The rest of him doesn't care anymore. Whatever he is, it is what it is. He has no say, no control, no Master that loves him.

Derek takes a moment to look around the room. The carpet is a plush off-white color. Everything else is dark mahogany wood with black and gold embellishments. The gold, while bordering on the edge of gaudy, is tastefully done, toned down with the black. There is no horse artwork on the walls. The bed is bigger than a king size bed with a pallet on the floor at the foot of it that runs the length of the bed. Derek wonders if he'll be sleeping there.

The door that Nick and Zane had gone through is on a wall that has two other doors, three total. The other two doors are closed. This seating area is not too far from the bed. On the other side of the room is a desk, chest of drawers, etc. A room off to that side of the room looks like the bathroom.

Derek looks into the empty fireplace, feeling something of a kinship for it, a fireplace with no fire in it, empty space. Will Mikael read to him here? Will he light the fireplace?

_He is not Antoine. We are not okay._


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the episode 8x18 - Restoration
> 
> What if Carl Buford didn't die? What if he lived and escaped from prison? This is going to be an AU where this happens. It's going to take Derek many places and get very dark and twisted. If you are triggered by non-consensual rape elements, this isn't the fic for you.
> 
> This is Part 2 of the A Lion Tamed Series. Please read Part 1 first.

Derek kneels on that pallet, all but forgotten for the entirety of that first day. He doesn't see Zane or Nick again. Mikael is in and out of the room, running his business presumably. Derek focuses on the fireplace, willing it to be alight with fire, not because he's cold. The temperature in the room is comfortable. He wants it lit because it reminds him of Antoine's, always lit when it's cold outside. It's warm outside here. The fireplace isn't lit.

Eventually he spots a photo atop the bureau across the room. It's Mikael and Antoine. Mikael looks mischievous, cocky. Antoine is looking to the side, laughing. It's a candid moment between the brothers. Derek remembers their banter back and forth the first time he saw them. He remembers Antoine's pleased smile when Mikael had conceded Derek to him.

When he starts thinking of Antoine, he goes to that nothing place where he can exist without thinking or feeling too much. It's safer there. He stays there for a long time, almost thankful for being left alone so that he doesn't have to exist outside of that carefully constructed nothingness.

That evening Mikael is back in his room. He escapes into the bathroom and into what Derek assumes is an attached closet. Because when he returns he's in sweat pants and a tank. He looks over to Derek and seems pleased to find him still in the same place he left him like a good piece of furniture should be.

The moment his new Master starts to speak, Derek makes himself be present in the moment. If things go as he thinks they will, he'll get to go back to nothing, where it's safest, often enough.

"Today has been a horrible first day, I know. I had to get things squared away so that I could take time off for you." He chuckles, running his fingers through his short hair. He pauses by the bureau, by the photo of him and his brother. "Honestly, my entire life has revolved around you for the past few months and you don't even know it. I don't find it pleasurable in the least. Usually I would get a little bit of credit for my attention."

Mikael crosses the room and slides into the armchair next to Derek's pallet again. "At least now you're here to notice it. Do you want to please me, Derek?"

"Yes, Sir." Most of Derek really means that. Most of him. Pleasing people is what he's good at.

"It would please me for you to speak your mind as long as you do so respectfully. It would please me for you to listen to that argumentative voice in your head, hold it's council and converse with it. It would please me for you to think about that voice as often as you possibly can and give it more power." Mikael's bare foot slides up Derek's thigh to press at the hard shaft at his groin. "Tell me how you'll accomplish all of that."

Derek is caught off guard by the command. He isn't usually made to talk about what he's told to do. He's just to do it, no questions, no commentary. Submit. Obey. Somewhere in all of this he's lost his voice for the most part, just as he's lost so many other parts of himself. He's also confused about the list of things his Master says would please him.

"Master..." He starts, pausing for too long.

Mikael casts a frustrated glance up to the ceiling. "I don't want a mindless, brainless thing as my own, Derek. I know that you used to work for the FBI, a big bad FBI Agent. Not just that, a Profiler. You used to study the mind and how it works, all of its intricacies, the ins and outs of how people think and act, human behavior. Ironic that all of those nasty things you used to study have been used against you." His Master's gaze never leaves his. "I bet there's a brilliant and fascinating mind in that head of yours. I bet you were once an alpha male. I bet you had techniques to fight what the Gallery was doing to you but those techniques failed. Something failed you. I wonder what it was."

There is nothing in what Mikael is saying that Derek can argue with, nor would he at this point. He's still trying to figure out how he's going to do all those things Mikael wants of him. His Master likes to talk, has a lot to say, and is very sharp and astute. That foot at his groin makes it hard to think past sexual need. He is a sexual thing now.

"Say what you're thinking, Derek. I can tell that that mind is working a mile a minute. Say it. Don't just think it." Mikael instructs.

Derek still hesitates, words almost coming but not quite making it out of his mouth. Then, finally, "What exactly do you want me to say, Master?"

"What you're thinking, Derek. Tell me what you're thinking."

"I think..." Derek's gone so long not saying what he really thinks that he has no idea how to go about it anymore. "I'm confused, Master."

"About what?"

"About why what I think matters, Master."

"Because I said it matters. Because I'm curious about it. Because hearing what you think pleases me. Because you want to please me."

"I think..." Derek looks down to where that pale white foot plays off of the dark skin of his cock. He remembers the Mistress being pleased with how Dare's pale skin had looked against his. "I miss the pets from the Mistress's harem."

"Did you like being in her harem?"

"I don't know if like is the right word, Master." He realizes that he's just countered his Master and he quickly backtracks. "I mean, if you want it to be the-..."

"Derek, it's okay. Say what you think, just be respectful." After Derek has taken a deep breath to calm his nerves, his Master continues. "You know, not everyone gets selected for her harem. It rarely happens. She thought you were something special. So did my brother. So do I."

"Thank you, Master."

"Why do you miss the harem?"

"Because I had friends there, Master. I was never alone."

"And I left you alone today. I'm sorry for that."

"You had things to do, Master. I understand." Derek's breath catches with a spike of arousal that courses through him. "Master..."

"Yes?"

Mikael has arched a brow. Derek realizes that he wants him to say it. "Your foot, Master. It... feels good. Would you like for me to please you, Sir?"

"It would please me for you to speak to me. Words have power, Derek. I think you know that. That's why I use them. That's why a part of you, deep down, wants to unload on me. Words. It would please me for you to let those other parts of you speak."

Words do have power. Derek knows that all too well: whore, hole, pet, slave, cunt.

"What am I, Master?" Derek asks suddenly.

"What do you mean? You're a man, a human, mine."

"Am I a whore? A hole? A pet or a slave? Am I something else?"

"You are mine."

"I'm your what, Master? What am I to you?"

Mikael smiles at the challenge, no matter how small it might be. That foot continues working over his cock. "In my work we call a kept slave a 'personal'. That would make you my personal companion. That would make you anything I want you to be. If I want you to be a whore, you will be one. If I want you to be a fuck toy, you will be one. If I want you to be my dinner date for the evening, you will be that. If I want you to be a foot stool, you will be one. You are mine. My personal."

His Master pauses. "What is Nick to you?"

Nick. Derek glances over to the door Nick and Zane had gone through. They hadn't returned yet. "He was my personal guard in the labs, Master."

"But what is he to you?"

"He's... safe." Derek has no idea how to explain Nick. "He was the first person who was kind of nice to me after the catacombs, Master. He took care of me. He made things okay. He told me what to do to keep from going back to the catacombs."

"I've heard about the catacombs."

"Your foot, Master."

"What about it?"

"It's too much. I can't... I've had upgrades."

"I know about the upgrades. This is where my foot wants to be."

Derek emits a heady growl and tries to think of anything but the blood that's rushed to his groin. "May I please you, Master?"

"It would please me for you to tell me why the Mistress demanded I take Nick along with you."

Coming up with the right answer for that takes more layered and in-depth thought than Derek has had to employ in a long time. It makes him have to do things that the old him used to do, profiling. He has to analyze the Mistress's motivations. The way she treated him once he was back in her care, the things she said.

His Master is barely patient, but he does wait as Derek thinks it through.

"I uhm... I think she felt guilt." Derek finally says.

"For what?"

"For losing me. The wreck. For what I had to go through to get back to her."

"Yes it can be difficult for a pet to reintegrate with life outside of their master. But you went back to her, why?"

"Because I needed my Master." That voice, the angry one, pipes up in his head.

_Come on. There is no reason to be telling him these things. We're fucked up. We don't have to let him know how fucked up we are. Quit answering his questions and slap that foot away from us._

"I can't." Derek whispers.

Mikael arches a brow. "You can't what?"

Derek shakes his head and presses his lips together. He looks down to the floor and whispers. "I'm sorry, Master."

"Give him to me. Give me whoever you're talking to." That foot slips to the floor. Mikael leans in and roughly grabs Derek's chin, pulling his gaze back up to him. "That's an order from your Master. You want to please me? Give me what I want. Now."

On the word 'now', Derek's eyes narrow at Mikael. The shift is that easy, that quick.

"Fuck. You." The words come out deliberate, each of them their own poignant sentence, drawn out, because Derek has wanted to say them for so damn long. He's wanted to say them to everyone.

Mikael grins. "Finally. There you are."

Derek reaches a hand up around Mikael's wrist and throws his hand away from him to release his chin. Mikael hits Derek's cheek, hard enough to make Derek's head snap to the side. Derek reaches out to grab Mikael's ankles and pull. It brings the man tumbling to the floor. It's a simple maneuver then to wind up behind Mikael with an arm wrapped around his throat.

His lips are close to Mikael's ear, his voice low and dangerous. "So here's what's gonna happen. You're gonna get me outta here. We're gonna walk right out your front door and nobody's gonna stop us." Derek tightens his arm at Mikael's throat. "Do you understand?"

"No. You're going to let me go. I'm your Master. I always win, Derek. You need to understand that now." Mikael isn't even trying to break free from him. Cocky bastard. "Release me."

Derek's mind trips over that, part of him wanting to do as he's told, the other part willing to push this as far as it'll get him because there's always the chance that it will work, that he'll get the fuck out of here.

"I must say your hard-on feels wonderful right where it is though."

Mikael is teasing him. Derek has his arm around his neck and the man has the gall to tease him. He's suddenly all too aware of his cock pressed to Mikael's ass though. Those parts of him that need sex are now at war with the parts of him that want to get the hell out of here too.

Derek stalls too long. The door Nick and Zane had disappeared through earlier is suddenly open. Both men rush into the room, tasers raised. Derek could give a shit about Zane. It's Nick he zeroes in on. Nick is in the makings of a suit without the necktie. Nick is lowering his taser.

"Derek. No is a bad word. Do as your Master says." Nick instructs.

Derek swallows hard. "I want Antoine."

"Antoine is dead." Mikael says calmly. "Release me."

Nick gives him the slightest of nods.

_No is a bad word. Antoine is dead. Fuck everything. Fuck it all!_

Tears well in Derek's eyes again. "No." He whispers, fighting that tightness in his throat. He lets go of Mikael. Sees the backhand coming and lets it happen. The side of his face is hot with the hit. At the same time, the hit squelches any inclination he might have had to start crying again. He's glad for that.

His new Master grabs his chin and lifts his head up. Derek glares at him.

"You will never attack me with malice in your heart again."

Derek snaps back, pulling his chin out of that grip. "You go to hell."

"Oh, my wild beast," Mikael's hand pets at Derek's cheek over skin that's reddened and angry. "Only if you're going with me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry, guys! This week has been insane. Thanks for hanging in there with me. Enjoy!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the episode 8x18 - Restoration
> 
> What if Carl Buford didn't die? What if he lived and escaped from prison? This is going to be an AU where this happens. It's going to take Derek many places and get very dark and twisted. If you are triggered by non-consensual rape elements, this isn't the fic for you.
> 
> This is Part 2 of the A Lion Tamed Series. Please read Part 1 first.

"Should we stay in the room, Sir?" Zane asks.

"For a few moments more." Mikael still sounds infuriatingly calm.

Mikael has stood up, dusted himself off and moved across the room to the bureau. Derek still kneels, staring at Nick, hands relaxed at his sides. Nick almost looks worried about what's going to happen next, not for himself, but for Derek. Derek can see it in his expression. He continues to look at Nick, not asking for any help, just because he doesn't care about anybody else in the room.

It startles him that even now, even when this version of himself is on the outside, screwing everything up, he still cares about Nick.

"Why did she send you with me?" He asks aloud. Mikael wanted him to talk, but he'd made no specifications about who he was supposed to talk to or what he should and should not say. Derek doesn't see any reason why he shouldn't talk to Nick.

Nick slightly shakes his head, doesn't say a word.

Derek gets to his feet. He doesn't need permission. If it's wrong, he'll pay for it later. It feels good to stand after kneeling on that pallet all day. He walks over to Nick even as Zane lifts his taser again. "Why did she send you with me?"

"Derek?" Mikael speaks behind him. "Where should your hands be?"

It takes work, but Derek uncurls his fingers from the fists they'd been clenched in. He hesitates. It pisses him off right now that Nick won't answer him, that he doesn't understand whatever feelings he has for Nick.

_Nick is one of the bad guys. He's a part of why my mind's so twisted up. Fuck Nick._

"If I have to repeat myself, you won't care for it all that much." Mikael says. "This is your only warning."

Finally, after weighing the pros and cons of obeying or not, Derek clasps his hands behind his back. He still stares at Nick as he feels soft ties wrap around his wrists. His hands are being tied behind his back.

"Guess you don't like what you asked for, huh?" Derek says, then adds some belated sarcasm to top it off. "I feel really bad for you." Pro tip: He doesn't feel bad for anyone.

"Quite the contrary. I like what you're giving me more than I can say." Mikael tests the ties to make sure that Derek can't pull his hands from them, then, without warning, he unclasps the silver collar with black onyx gems from Derek's neck and pulls it away.

"Wait." Derek says, finally looking away from Nick to Mikael. "That's mine."

Mikael is looking down at the collar. "My brother gave it to you."

"Yes, Master." Derek hates how his voice sounds, like he might break if it isn't given back to him. He squares his jaw and lifts his chin defiantly. "It's mine."

"What is yours is mine. I say what you can have and when. I'm taking it for now."

As Mikael turns away from him, Derek starts to step after him. Nick coughs behind him. Derek stops. His wrists pull at the restraints. The ties are soft, but they have very little wiggle room.

"That's mine." Derek says these words in a barely audible whisper, more just mouthing them.

_We don't need a collar. Good riddance, right? We don't need a collar. We're no one's **pet**. It's okay. We're okay._

It doesn't feel like he's okay. He feels naked and lost and so much anger he has no idea what to do with it. The fact that he knows Mikael did that at this exact moment when Derek is just starting to feel a tiny bit of empowerment again to throw him off only makes Derek more stubborn about not reacting to it anymore. He tries to erase any emotion he might have over the loss of Antoine's collar.

"Look at you, being so strong." Mikael coos in the same tone that Antoine would have used to tell him that he's beautiful and that he's proud of him. Having put the collar in a box, Mikael makes sure Derek can see the box given to Zane.

The look Derek gives Nick asks him to please get that collar. No, not asks, it begs him. Nick betrays nothing to him. Inside his head he doesn't want to want the collar. He doesn't want to need it. The reality is that he's a fucking mess over that collar. He's torn up inside and he's the biggest fucking mess.

Mikael moves back to his chair to sit down. He pulls the pallet that had been jostled moments before closer to him and points to it. "Kneel."

_No is a bad word. Do what he says._

Derek kneels on the pallet. He looks up to Mikael, refusing to look away even as he sees Nick and Zane backing out of the room from the corner of his eye. There goes his collar. There goes Nick. Derek is left here with this man and he wants to be anywhere else.

He wants to ask about the collar. Derek swallows those words down and doesn't say them. He won't give Mikael the satisfaction.

"You're seething. It's a beautiful thing, Derek." Mikael crosses one leg over the other. "Let's get a few things straight..." As he speaks, a tray is brought in and set on a table beside him. There are two plates on the tray. One of them has bite-sized pieces of food.

 _Everything I learned about training a pet, I learned from my brother._ Antoine had said that.

No. Derek doesn't want to be hand fed his meal like Antoine used to do. Not from this man.

"You are never to lash out at me like that. You do not curse at me. Cursing is for the small minded. You're better than that. You're smarter than that. You use your words. You tell me what you think, even when you're seething. I want to know what has made you angry and why."

Derek says nothing. It's a conscious decision to just kneel here and glare. Mikael wants him to talk but he wants to dictate what comes out of his mouth. Too damn bad. That's not how it works. He's a human being with his own thoughts and emotions. He won't be told what to say anymore.

"Oh, my darling pet, your mind is turning so fast and yet you say nothing." Mikael considers Derek for a moment. "I could make you talk, but I'd rather not use drugs to accomplish something that should be so simple a task."

Drugs. Derek has a decision to make here. Drugs, he has learned, can be used to mess with his head space even more. They might send him back into that place in his mind where he's been hiding for a long time, biding his time, waiting while the other pieces of his fractured mind took over. He needs to stay sharp. He wants to stay sharp.

"You're nothing like Antoine." That probably isn't what Mikael wants to hear, but Derek won't be told what to say. It also isn't necessarily true. There are bits of Antoine in Mikael; the way they sit in the chair in the same way, some of his mannerisms, that perpetual smirk on their lips. Mostly, Derek says it to dig at the other man.

Mikael doesn't miss a beat. "Oh good. I'd rather be me." He plucks a bite-sized piece of cheese from the plate and holds it out. "And I think you forgot to say that respectfully, with my title."

"Respect is earned." Derek lets that sit there for a moment before adding, "Master." There's very little respect in his tone when he says it though. It's just a word, a word on top of many other words that hold more meaning to him than he wants them to. Words are powerful things.

"You're not wrong. You also aren't even trying to see if I'm worthy of your respect. You can't see past your sadness, your anger, your trauma."

A silence settles here, Derek lost in the truth of that statement and Mikael letting the truth of it sink in.

"You're not wrong." Derek throws Mikael's words back at him. He's not trying and he doesn't want to try. He leans in to take the cheese cube from the other man's fingertips. Only Mikael lifts it up just a few inches away from him. 

Derek glares at him. 

Mikael arches an expectant brow. 

"Master." Derek adds begrudgingly.

Mikael nods but doesn't lower the cube of cheese. He wants Derek to really reach for it like a baby bird strains his neck to get food from it's mother's mouth. Derek stubbornly sinks back to his haunches without the cheese. Mikael grins.

Everything is a test of wills. Mikael seems to like tests of will. He likes that even though Derek is in a position where he can only fight back so much, they still butt heads.

"You will let me feed you, Derek. And I don't want to have to tell you that again. My offering food to you is a kindness that you must accept to survive. That's what you are, isn't it? You're a survivor." He holds the cheese out again. Once again it's impossibly high up. Antoine would have put it right to his lips. Mikael will not. Mikael wants Derek present, thinking, interacting and working for what is given to him.

There are so many battles going on in Derek's mind right now. He wants to obey. He hates that he wants to obey. He needs to eat. He hates that he needs to eat. He's been conditioned to submit and do as he's told. Derek hates these reconditioned bits of himself.

In the end, the reconditioning wins out and Derek lifts up and stretches his neck to carefully get the cube of cheese with his teeth. It's creamy and delicious. It's the first bit of food he's had all day. His stomach is hungry for it.

Mikael feeds him several bits of food in this way, holding them high in different places and Derek stretching to reach for them while remaining on his knees. Mikael seems to enjoy watching him all the way through their meal.

When their plates are clean, Mikael sips from a glass of wine. He offers Derek a drink of water, holding the rim of the glass to his lips. Derek drinks.

"I'd like to give you dessert, Derek."

"It's your house, Master." He knows he should have said 'if it pleases you', but he just can't bring himself to do it. The voice in his head doesn't much care for the way he's pushing all the boundaries. Derek tells that voice to shut up.

Mikael uncrosses his legs and lifts his hips just enough to push his pants down. They go all the way down to his ankles so that he can spread his legs, hard cock on display. Mikael's length is bigger and fatter than Antoine's was.

Derek glares up to Mikael.

Mikael rests an elbow on the arm of his chair, chin in his hand, and waits patiently.

He knows what's expected. Derek has a visual of himself leaning in and biting the entire thing off in one bloody and grotesque moment of triumph. That visual is followed by one of the most traumatic things to ever happen to him; a knife in his mouth, metal propping his mouth open, being unable to close his mouth for days on end.

_Even now, I'm not a biter. I'll never be a biter again. Fuck._

And even now, that psychological reconditioning wins out no matter how hard he fights it. If it's presented to him, he's supposed to lick it, suck it, fuck it. It's a compulsion at this point, a necessity too strong to ignore. 

Derek starts to lean in, but Mikael makes a sound to stop him. "Ask."

Of course he has to ask. Derek squares his jaw, his hands clenching together hard behind his back. 

"May I please you, Sir." It's a statement instead of a question. Words that have to be said, not words that want to be said like they would have been with the other versions of himself.

"Yes, Derek. You may."

This time when Derek leans in, nothing stops him from lapping his tongue up over the underside of that length. Nothing stops him from inhaling and breathing in the same damn scent of the body wash Antoine used to use. Derek closes his eyes, getting lost in that scent. Nothing stops him from taking Antoine, no, Mikael, into his mouth in his entirety, and suckling his way off of him.

This cock is different in his mouth. The man sitting in this chair is different. But the scent...

Derek can almost imagine it's Antoine. Almost.

Mikael's hand smooths back over his braids, glides over his cheek as Derek sucks him off. The touches are gentle, just as Antoine's used to be. They're gentle right up to the point that Mikael grabs his braids at their base near his scalp and pulls Derek down to take every inch of his cock deep into his throat.

He keeps Derek there.

Derek has to remind himself to breathe through his nose. It'll be okay if he does that. He's done this before. He'll do it again.

"Tongue, Derek. Don't be a mindless, brainless thing."

Derek starts to move his tongue, easier said than done while making yourself not panic and breathe through your nose. Somehow, he accomplishes it. Whatever sound Mikael just made speaks of pleasure and arousal.

When Mikael finally tugs Derek off of him so that he can resume his attentions in his own way, Derek is almost surprised that he survived whatever that was. He didn't choke. He didn't pass out from lack of oxygen or panic. He's okay.

He can tell when Mikael is close, takes the other man deeper into his throat, sucks harder, tongue on every inch of him. Then he tastes it, that bitter-sweet taste of cum that Derek used to hate and now craves. He hates that it tastes good to him now. That hate doesn't stop him from drinking down every, last drop as if it were lifeblood.

His own cock is hard and heavy between his legs. He'd needed to do this without knowing he'd needed it. He wants to be touched too. He'll hump Mikael's fucking leg if that's what it takes.

When Mikael has spent his last drop, Derek looks up to him. "Please, Master."

Was that him or was that another version of himself? The lines are blurred here. He can't tell. He wishes it were another version of himself begging for his own release. He's pretty sure it was just him. His own damn body will forever be used against him now.

_So fucking weak. You're so weak. Used to be an alpha. Used to be in control. Look at us now. I'm a mess. I'm weak. Fuck, I hope he lets me cum. Please._

Mikael, eyes soft and easy with the aftermath of his own pleasure, leans in close. "Please what?"

Derek thinks about not saying it. He doesn't want to say it. He says it anyway. "Please let me cum, Master."

"Come up here and sit in my lap."

Oh how pleased Mikael looks as Derek climbs up into his lap. Initially, Derek sits with his back to him, but Mikael turns him sideways, propping his back up by helping him use his own elbows on the arm of the chair and letting Derek's legs dangle over the side.

Mikael's hand starts to work Derek's cock. He's already leaking, he can't help it. "Who owns you, Derek?"

_No one owns me._

Another voice pipes up. _Just say it. He owns us. Say it and he'll give us what we need._

Still, there's hesitation before Derek gets the words out. "You own me, Master."

"Hrm. Someday it won't take you so long to answer that question." Mikael's hand continues to slide over him, thumb dipping into pre at the slit, stroking, pulling, pushing. "It says in your file that you've been trained to cum on command."

Derek isn't sure how much more of this he can take. He'd also like to see what else is in that file from The Art Gallery.

"Would you like permission to cum, Derek?"

"Yes."

"Yes what?"

"Yes, Master. Please."

"Cum for me now."

Derek spills so much onto his own chest and Mikael's hand that he's dripping with it. Whatever sound he just made reminds him of being with Antoine, the carnal sounds he used to make for him.

_This is not Antoine._

His body seems to liquefy into Mikael's lap, eyes closed, head canted back, chest heaving to get enough air into his lungs. Yes, he needed this.

"Derek..." When Derek opens his eyes and looks to Mikael, he finds the man holding a dollop of his own cum out to him on his fingertips. "Finish your dessert."

Derek suckles the spill from Mikael's fingers. Every. Last. Drop.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the episode 8x18 - Restoration
> 
> What if Carl Buford didn't die? What if he lived and escaped from prison? This is going to be an AU where this happens. It's going to take Derek many places and get very dark and twisted. If you are triggered by non-consensual rape elements, this isn't the fic for you.
> 
> This is Part 2 of the A Lion Tamed Series. Please read Part 1 first.

After Derek has had all of his dessert, Mikael keeps him just where he is. He traces his fingertips over Derek's skin, lingering at all the piercings. He makes Derek open his mouth and stick his tongue out so that he can see the tongue piercing he'd felt on his cock. He inspects Derek's hair, his lips, the muscles in his neck and arms and chest and abdomen.

"There are so many things that make you special, Derek. These muscles are one of them. We'll have to keep building them up. I also want to change out all these silver piercings for gold."

It takes a lot of effort not to react to that. Antoine had put those piercings into him by hand. Now those were going to be taken from him too. Somehow he makes himself keep those emotions that want to bubble up inside of him to himself.

_Why should I care? Antoine was a bad guy too. He bought me. He turned me into a horse._

Derek misses being a horse. He hates that he misses being a horse. He hates that he's such a mess of contradictions.

"Gold is better suited for wild beasts like yourself, isn't it Derek?"

"It's your house." Derek says, then belatedly adds, "Master."

"It will play so beautifully off your skin tone."

Derek wishes Mikael would react to the way Derek pushes his boundaries, but the man is ever calm. As Mikael continues to touch him, Derek notices another similarity between the brothers. They have the same hands, long slender fingers, elegant, well manicured.

A pat to his thigh and the word 'up' gets Derek to lifts himself from Mikael's lap. The other man stands as well and moves to the pallet at the foot of the large, four post bed. "This is where you'll sleep for now. Lie down."

It isn't a big surprise. Derek had expected it. He lays down on the pallet. It's comfortable although a bit awkward with his hands tied behind his back.

He hears Mikael getting ready for bed in the bathroom. He hears quiet murmurs from the room where Zane and Nick had disappeared into. He hears the wind blowing outside. He hears his own breathing in his ears and tries not to focus on that. It reminds him of being shut in a coffin-sized box where all he could hear was his own heartbeat, his own breath.

Mikael is leaning over him, naked. Derek sees that he has a few scars on his body. He's handsome though, slim and trim like Antoine was. "I want you to fight to still be present for me tomorrow. I want you, not whatever other versions of you created for survival. You're the survivor. You created them. You control them. You're in charge of them. I want you."

It hasn't occurred to Derek that sleep might put him back in the passenger seat. The psychology behind that possibility is sound though, at least until he's got roots set in the driver's seat again.

"Goodnight, Derek."

Mikael waits, and waits, until Derek makes himself say goodnight to his Master. The lights go out and Mikael gets into his large bed by himself. There's light shining from under the door where Derek knows Nick is. Derek isn't restrained to this place on his pallet by any means. But he knows he should stay here until he's told otherwise and he does.

He's in and out of sleep for awhile. At some point in the night he hears Mikael get out of bed and light a cigarette. The smell of cloves fills the room. Derek cants his head around and backward to see Mikael's naked silhouette at the window, smoking, illuminated by moonlight.

Derek watches him for the entire time he stands there. Then Mikael gets back in bed. Derek finally sleeps.

 

* * *

 

When Derek first wakes up, he isn't sure of where he is. He has to remind himself that he's in Mikael's house. Antoine is dead. The choice of being with Antoine was taken away from him.

Also, when Derek first wakes up, his initial thought is to find his Master and ask if he can please him. He smells the sweet scent of pipe tobacco. He pushes up to his knees and is surprised to find Mikael, with only a pair of sweat pants on, sitting in his armchair by the fireplace, looking at him.

His Master is smoking a pipe. His Master's hair is sleep mused. Brilliant blue eyes watch him with a sense of admiration. Derek thinks his Master likes him, likes what he sees. That makes Derek feel good inside. He wants to be admired. He wants to be liked. He wants to be desired.

Mikael is a handsome man. Rougher around the edges than his brother was, but still handsome.

"M-..." He starts and stops. The words get caught in his throat. He tries again. "May I p-..."

Something shifts inside Derek's mind. Things get twisted and confusing. Derek looks at Mikael with confusion for just a moment. Then he glares at him.

Mikael smiles and takes another puff at the mouth of his pipe. "Good morning, Derek."

"You know that stuff will kill you." Derek says. "Master."

"Concerned after my health? How touching." Almost deliberately so, Mikael takes several more puffs. "I don't think there's ever a time when you're not beautiful."

It's a compliment that Derek has no idea how to combat. He wants to combat it because it came from Mikael. But it sounds so much like something Antoine would say that it forces him into silence.

"Do you feel beautiful, Derek?"

That's easy to answer. "No, Master."

"What do you not like about yourself?"

That's harder to answer. When was the last time he felt beautiful? He's ashamed to say that it was one of the last times Antoine had been healthy, put him in his tack and paraded him through the house. His Master had been so proud of him. Derek had almost preened for how good and right and beautiful he felt. That was another version of himself though. Now everything about that is blemished in some way.

"Tell me what you're thinking."

"I'm thinking it doesn't matter what I like or don't like about myself." Derek shrugs. "It is what it is."

"Tell me what 'it' is." Mikael continues smoking his pipe.

Derek inhales a deep breath, hesitates, tries to figure out how to say what he's thinking without giving too much of himself to this man. "There are tattoos around my eyes that are never gonna go away. I can't change that. The piercings, they're too much but I'm pretty sure if I tried to take them out I'd get in trouble. My hair has long braids down the middle that your brother put there. But there's a lot of new growth too so I end up looking like..." He sighs and shakes his head, looking down at himself. "My nails are getting long. My cock is always hard. My head is even messier on the inside than the outside. I'm tired."

"You just woke up."

"That's not what I mean."

"I know."

Derek looks up to find Mikael still looking him over. There was a time when his being naked and another person not would have bothered him. He's so far past that now that it doesn't even cross his mind to worry about it.

"You're still beautiful. You're beautiful when you're asleep, when you're awake, when you're just waking up, when you're angry or worried or sad. You try not to wear those emotions on your sleeve but you can't help yourself. When you feel something, you feel it with all of yourself."

More compliments. Derek responds harshly. "Is all that in my file too, Master?"

Mikael isn't angry. In fact, he grins and sets his pipe aside. "I'm proud of you for fighting those other voices in your head this morning. If you give me what I want and need, you'll be rewarded with what you want and need."

The man stands and points to the ground. "Crawl to me and heel."

Derek bites down on the inside of his cheek to keep from telling Mikael to go fuck himself. Normally, in that life he lived before Carl escaped from prison, before the Gallery, before Antoine and before Mikael, Derek only really spoke like that when he was really and truly bothered by something. His mom had raised him to have better manners than that. Now he has so much pent up inside of him that everything makes him want to yell, scream, kick and punch. He can't do any of that though. It leaves him with curse words and harsh looks and words snapped out without thinking them through.

Finally, Derek leans forward, palms on the floor, and crawls to Mikael. He understands now that 'heel' means follow him, like a dog. He hates this. He wants to stand up and walk. It feels demeaning in every way. But he makes himself crawl after Mikael all the way to the bathroom.

The set up is much like Antoine's had been. Derek is told to stand in the shower and Mikael washes him. There's a wand that Mikael uses on him to flush him out three times. Then he's rinsed again. The body wash smells like Antoine. All of this feels like Antoine. Mikael is not Antoine.

_I don't care. Antoine is dead. Antoine was one of the bad guys. So is Mikael._

Maybe if he tells himself that he doesn't care enough times, it'll be true. Mikael wasn't wrong when he said that Derek isn't even trying. Derek doesn't want to try. He doesn't want to end up with what he knows had to be Stockholm syndrome like what he had with Antoine.

Right now, the lines between Antoine and Mikael are getting very blurry.

After washing him, Mikael dries Derek off with a soft towel. At the bathroom counter, Mikael brushes Derek's teeth and trims his beard down to just a light stubble. Derek lets him do all these things. But he makes it a point not to look at all happy about it.

_I could do all of these things myself. I don't need someone to do them for me like Antoine made me think I did._

Maybe, just maybe, there's a small part of him that likes having these things done for him, that likes being groomed like this. He's trying so hard to ignore that part of him, to ignore how comfortable he is with shifting this way and that to let Mikael do everything he wants to do.

After this, Mikael leads Derek into the closet area. Derek stares at the pallet. This is almost too much like what Antoine did with him.

"Kneel."

Derek kneels and watches Antoine get dressed in suit and tie. As he does this something occurs to him. "Did Antoine tell you to do this?"

"Respect, Derek."

"Did Antoine tell you to do this, Master?" The word falls easier from his lips because his curiosity is too great.

"My brother and I were very close. I told you that everything was about you leading up to his passing. Did you finally get outside of your own emotions enough to put two and two together?"

Derek doesn't answer because Mikael's not wrong. It should have occurred to him sooner.

"I made promises to him. I will keep those promises but I will do them my way, not his." Straightening his tie, Mikael moves over to Derek and grips his chin, making him look up. "I am not my brother. Don't ever mistake me for him. Say my name."

"Master."

"Not my title, my name."

"Mikael."

Mikael nods and moves with a 'heel' barked out behind him. Derek begrudgingly crawls after him out into the main room. His mind is swimming with thoughts of Antoine. What had his Master told his brother? What are those promises made that will be kept? What is Mikael's 'way'?

Nick and Zane are waiting for them in the main room, both of them in suits and ties. Derek is told to stand and heel. He follows behind Mikael out of the room, Nick and Zane walking behind him. They get in an elevator and go down, down, down....

They end up in a doctor's lab where a handsome man about Mikael's age turns to greet them with a smile. His gaze lingers on Derek. "Oh Mikael... he's everything you said he was."

"Of course he is." Mikael seems prideful the way he says it.

Derek is put through a full exam, both normal and not so normal. Doctor Javid wants to check out the upgrades too, which puts Derek bent over a bed and his ass inspected for all to see, plus exrays of the pump in his arm beneath his skin and the chip and tracker in his shoulder at the back of his neck. Mikael stays with him, holding his hand or touching him in some way the entire time.

Once that's done, Derek is taken down the hallway where there are several naked people in chairs getting their hair done. A woman greets them and leads them to one of the chairs where Derek is told to sit.

"Hair off the sides, redo the braids along the middle."

It takes hours. But Mikael is there the whole time, on his phone, checking his phone, touching Derek while the woman works as if that touch were something comforting to Derek. Lunch is delivered. Mikael feeds Derek in front of all these people. Derek lets him.

All Derek can think is that he's getting his mane back. A part of him is rejoicing in this fact. A part of him hates it. Will he get a tail? Some tack? There's another war raging in side of him. He's split right down the middle, one side hating the other side.

When all is said and done, he's starting to feel a little bit better about things. He doesn't want to feel better about things. But when he looks into the mirror and sees his freshly braided mane and the sides of his head shaved, well... Antoine would think he looks beautiful. Maybe he is.

_No you're not. You look like a freak._

"Heel, Derek."

Derek gets up from the chair and follows Mikael to another room. "You've gotta be kidding me." He mutters. A nail salon. There are naked people in here getting their manicures and pedicures done.

As Derek's pedicure gets started, his feet put into a tub of hot water, Mikael goes to inspect the wall of colors. He comes back with black and gold and tells the woman working with Derek's nails exactly what he wants.

An hour and a half later, Derek's toenails and fingernails have been buffed, filed, shined and polished with black nail polish. Each black nail has a thin gold line down the middle from cuticle to tip.

In another room Derek's hairless skin from the neck down is buffed with some kind of salty scrub until it's raw and shiny. Then lotion is spread over his skin, soothing and soft. Mikael murmurs the word 'beautiful' before telling him to heel again.

They're back up in his room. Derek is kneeling on his pallet and Mikael is making him stretch himself up to get his dinner again.

"You've been quiet today." Mikael says, holding out a slice of strawberry. "Ever since this morning, when you asked about my brother. You've been quiet."

Derek lifts up, stretching his neck and canting his head to get the strawberry from Mikael's fingertips. He uses eating as an excuse not to say anything. He doesn't know what to say and he's pretty sure his questions won't be answered.

Mikael leans in, sliding his fingertips along Derek's jawline. He repeats his question from this morning. "Do you feel beautiful, Derek?"

The word 'no' begs to be said. A part of him wants to say it so badly. A part of him wouldn't mean it. Somewhere along the way, his definition of beautiful has been redefined. Antoine would think he was beautiful right now. Mikael obviously thinks he's beautiful. He hadn't missed the appreciative glance from Nick in the elevator on the way back up here.

_I'm a freak. I'm so messed up. I'm a freak. I need help. I'm a freak._

"Yes, Master." He finally says. And he means it. Mostly.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the episode 8x18 - Restoration
> 
> What if Carl Buford didn't die? What if he lived and escaped from prison? This is going to be an AU where this happens. It's going to take Derek many places and get very dark and twisted. If you are triggered by non-consensual rape elements, this isn't the fic for you.
> 
> This is Part 2 of the A Lion Tamed Series. Please read Part 1 first.

That night he dreams of Antoine. He dreams that Antoine has him dressed in his tack and tail. There's a metal bit in his mouth that makes him cry but he doesn't care because Antoine thinks he's beautiful. He dreams of wooden floors, fleece blankets and hay.

Derek kisses Antoine so sweetly because he wants to, not because he has to. When he pulls away it's Mikael's lips he was kissing. Antoine is still there, sliding a hand down his back to the round of his ass where his tail juts out, encouraging him to kiss his brother. Mikael touches his cheek and tells him he's beautiful. Derek can't decide if beautiful has the same definition when it comes from Mikael as it does when it comes from Antoine. They seem like entirely different words, each with their own intimate and unique implications.

"Derek, what are you doing?"

That voice startles him. Derek looks back to see Hotch, flanked by the rest of the BAU team, all of them looking at him like he's some odd thing with his hair in a mane and a tail in his ass, kissing two men, two brothers, as if that were normal.

Derek can't respond because of the bit. Hotch starts laughing. They all start laughing.

Sarah is there, half of her head exploded from a bullet. She's laughing too. "Whore." She speaks words that Carl should be saying. They hurt more coming from her. "You've always been a whore."

The dream shifts. Derek can still hear that laughter but he's in a box, a tight box and he can't move or see anything. It's dark, tight and cramped. The bit is still in his mouth, only it isn't the bit, it's the metal that he'd worn in the catacombs that had held his mouth wide open. He screams around it. He thrashes. He flails. He cries. He can't get out. He can't get out.

"Derek!"

No escape... no escape...

The box is shaking. No, he's shaking. No, someone's holding his shoulders and shaking him. Maybe they're holding him still and he's still the one shaking. He blinks up into the darkness, surprised that he isn't in a box, surprised that his mouth isn't pried open, surprised that he can see Mikael hovering over him, Nick and Zane are over his shoulder, just a few feet away. There's no sign of any of the cameos in his dream.

Derek is gasping for air. His throat is raw. Was he really screaming?

"We're okay." He whispers.

"You're okay." Mikael settles down on his pallet and pulls him into a hug. "We're fine, gentlemen. Leave us be." Nick and Zane leave the room.

Slowly, too slowly, the dream fades and it's just Derek and Mikael here in Mikael's bedroom. Slowly, Derek starts to find himself again, his truth, his reality. Mikael's hand smoothes over his shaved head, over his mane, Derek's walls are still down enough to accept and appreciate it. He curls in close to Mikael, blatantly needing his closeness.

"I don't wanna be a whore." Derek whispers.

Mikael's hand cups Derek's cheek, lifting his head so that they can look at each other even here in a darkened, moonlit room. "You are my personal. You're mine. Above all else, that is what you are. Always."

Derek says nothing.

"Who called you a whore?"

"My sis-..." No, that's not right. It was Carl Buford and his thugs. "Some guy."

Those elegant fingers trace over Derek's face. "Tell me."

Once again, Mikael is patient while Derek gathers the words he needs. Maybe the cloak of near darkness makes it easier. Maybe the way Mikael is touching him like he's something precious and sacred helps. Maybe the walls he usually keeps around himself are down enough so that the words come to him with ease. But in the end, he tells Mikael about the kidnapping, what happened in the basement of that house.

And when Mikael asks about Buford, Derek tells him that too, how he was molested as a child and never said a word about it. How Carl was an upstanding member of society and kept doing what he did to Derek for years. How Derek finally put him away in the end, but Carl Buford escaped. While he struggles through these words at times, he does eventually get them out with gentle coaxing from Mikael.

Derek tells Mikael everything about him and Carl Buford, the demon from his nightmares. It's like absolving his soul of a weight that's been pressing down on it for so long. Then he tells him about the dream, about Sarah, about watching his sister's head explode, her body crumple to the floor, the way her dead eyes had stared at him in accusation, perceived or not.

Mikael asks questions, Derek answers. They wind up laying on Derek's pallet entwined in one another. Eventually, Derek falls asleep again, exhausted.

 

* * *

 

Derek is warm when he wakes up, so warm that he could almost believe he was in the harem surrounded by bodies on all sides. He realizes that there's just one body though. Mikael is behind him, pressed against him, an arm and a leg encircling him, his breath warm on the back of Derek's neck.

He has a few moments where that other him enjoys being held, enjoys being warm, enjoys feeling safe and cared for, then all hell starts to break loose in his mind.

Memories from last night start creeping back in and Derek immediately starts berating himself for letting a nightmare affect him enough that he would confide the darkest parts of his childhood to this man. He told Mikael things that he never told anyone in that much detail, not the BAU team, not the therapists he'd had to speak to, not Antoine, not anyone.

Now Mikael has ammunition to use against him. Fuck.

Behind him, the devil shifts and pushes up to his elbow. A hand at Derek's shoulder pushes him back so that he has to look up at Mikael. Derek makes sure to glare at him. Mikael seems pleased with that.

"Good morning, Derek." He waits.

Derek has a feeling Mikael would wait forever. So he answers in kind. "Good morning, Master."

Mikael reaches up to brush a hand over one side of Derek's shaved head. "Are you feeling better this morning? No more bad dreams?"

"Look, I had a-"

"You're human. We both are. Everyone has bad dreams. Please don't belittle the things you shared with me last night by trying to backtrack. Those things are important. They're a part of you. I won't have you trying to diminish their importance because your vulnerabilities are now safely behind a proverbial steel-trapped door."

It isn't at all what Derek has expected him to say. Mikael's words take away all of Derek's protests or backtracking, as it were, and leaves him staring up at the man in confusion.

Mikael kisses him. Derek kisses him back because he knows he's supposed to. Then Mikael stands and stretches. "Up, Derek." He says. "Heel."

They go to the bathroom to go through their morning routine. Derek doesn't say much because he's still trying to process what happened last night and this morning with this man he's trying so damn hard to hate. Today, Mikael slicks up Derek's ass and presses a plug into it. Just a plug. Derek is almost embarrassed to say that he likes the way it feels and is glad to have it.

Mikael spends the better part of the morning replacing all the silver piercings with gold ones. Derek tries to remain calm through the whole thing, not to betray any emotion. Like his collar, he'll miss the silver though. His tongue, nipples, the jacobs ladder at his cock, his navel, they all now have golden beads in them. 

They break for lunch. Mikael feeds Derek and Derek is becoming more comfortable with reaching up for his food.

Then Mikael proceeds to pierce the left side of Derek's nose. He uses a needle in the same way Derek imagines Antoine to have done it. This time Derek is not blindfolded. This time he gets to see the instruments, anticipate the pain, and learn to deal with it.

He pushes the needle through Derek's ears, both of them, several times, even up through thick cartilage at the top where it's more difficult and painful. Each time Derek gets through a piercing, Mikael tells him how good he's being and pets him with a gentle caress.

When Mikael settles behind him he holds a small mirror up for him to see his own reflection. Derek's nose and ears are red and angry. There are piercings, all gold, but of different sizes, some with thin gold chains connecting them, all the way up each ear. His nose has one small gold bead in it.

"Look how the gold plays off of your skin." Mikael seems most pleased by it. He pulls Derek's braids over to one side so that one of his pierced ornamented ears is on full display. "I love it."

"It's your house..." Derek says thoughtfully, considering his own image in the reflection. The dark around his eyes, the mane of braids, the piercings, they do make him look like a wild and dangerous thing. The gold isn't so bad.

"Hold the mirror."

Derek takes a hold of the mirror. Mikael is sitting behind him and Derek has a full view of the other man turning to get something else. Something gold, more gold. Mikael slips the heavy, thick piece around his neck. It's a new gold collar that hangs similarly to how Antoine's had, loose enough to almost be a necklace but not quite. There are black gems along the center of the collar.

One hand has lifted to touch the familiar black gems before he even thinks about it.

"Look familiar?" Mikael asks, confirming what Derek has suspected. These are the gems from his old collar.

What he feels right then is absolutely ridiculous, an intense and heartfelt gratitude for this one small, tiny thing. Mikael is supposed to be a horrible man. He wants to hate him. In this one, small moment in time, he can't hate him. Mikael has let Derek keep some of Antoine with him. He hates that this means so much to him.

Derek looks at Mikael's reflection in the mirror over his left shoulder. "Why are you being nice to me?"

"You expect me to be an ogre all the time?" Mikael slides his hands over Derek's shoulders. "Oh, well... you'll be sorely disappointed. Don't worry, I'm not always this nice." His fingers slide underneath the collar, hooking between metal and Derek's skin at the back of his neck. "You've pleased me and it puts me in a good mood."

Those fingers tug, pulling Derek back against him, briefly choking him. Mikael hisses in his ear. "Don't worry, your Master still has plenty of bite." His teeth snap together.

Derek is so caught off guard by this kindness that he flinches from the snapping sound. Mikael lets go of his collar and Derek sways forward again.

It feels as if his world has slanted sideways once again. He's having to reorganize everything, reevaluate it all. Who is on his side and who isn't? Where and how everything and everyone comes out on the other side of this re-compartmentalization, he has no clue.

 

* * *

 

The next day Mikael can't get out of having to meet with what he calls a client. It will only be a few hours, he says. He pets a hand over Derek's head and then he and Zane are gone. Derek is left kneeling on his pallet by the fireplace, a fireplace that has yet to be lit. His hands are tethered behind his back by a soft but immovable material

Nick stands over by the door, quiet, resolute, Derek's eternal guard. They don't speak. 

It reminds Derek of the labs at the Gallery where they were usually separated by a sheen of glass. Sometimes they would communicate through looks or expressions. Nick won't even look at him now. This bothers Derek more than he cares to admit.

Much of the day is spent in silence. When lunch comes, Nick feeds him just as Antoine had, the food put right to his lips so that he doesn't have to stretch and reach for it. Strangely, it feels odd not to have to actively participate in eating, but Derek doesn't complain, doesn't argue.

He looks at Nick, willing the other man to say something to him. Nick is quiet. Nick doesn't touch him except when Derek's lips sometimes graze his fingertips to take bite-sized pieces of food from him.

After this, Derek is still on his pallet. Nick stands by the door. What was supposed to take a few hours turns into a full day. Derek is left kneeling there with too much time to think. A part of him even wishes Mikael would come back so that they could banter back and forth, a stimulation of the mind that Derek hasn't had in so long. Mikael has reawakened that inside of him so that it's hard to be without it.

There comes a point when he _has_ to say something or he'll go crazy.

"Will you say something to me?" Derek asks, looking over to Nick. "I don't care what, just say something."

Nick looks at him, but he doesn't say a word.

"Why won't you talk to me?" He continues. "You haven't said a word to me since we got here. I don't understand."

Still, Nick says nothing.

Derek's look is all heat and fire. "Did you ever give a shit about me or was that all in my fucked up head?" Could he really be that lost, that naive, that stupid to have made everything up? The answer is yes, he could have. Derek has been on the most traumatic roller coaster rides of his life, with terrifying highs and lows.

The truth is that many of those highs could have been his grasping at straws.

That truth pisses him off.

Derek stands. Nick's hand goes to his taser. Derek doesn't care about a taser. He's been tased before in his work with the FBI. He survived. He moves to stand in front of Nick, to look into his eyes face-to-face to try to glean any kind of emotion from him, anything. Nick is Nick, no emotion. The man doesn't even flinch.

"It was all in my head." It's a statement, not a question.

"Go kneel on your pallet. You're okay." Nick says.

Derek wants to break that steely resolve. He does the only thing he knows will get a response, he does a dangerous thing, a forbidden thing. "No."

_No is a bad word. No is a bad word. What have you done? No is a bad word._

Nick bucks up to him, forcing Derek to take a step back. Derek tries to hold his ground but Nick bucks up to him again and he's been fashioned to submit so he takes a step back again.

They have a staring contest, neither of them backing down, each of them close enough to feel the others breath play off of them.

"I care." Nick finally says. "That's why I'm telling you to go kneel on your pallet."

Derek is about to say no again, but another voice sounds in the room.

"Do as he says, Derek." It's Mikael. Zane is with him.

Mikael's blue eyes are all ice, dousing the heated moment with coolness.

Derek goes back to his pallet and kneels. What has he just done?

_You said no. No is a bad word. We're in trouble. We're in trouble. Did he hear us say no? Can he send us to the brutes in the catacombs? No is a bad word._

"Nick, may I speak with you for a moment?" Mikael doesn't wait, just walks to the room where Nick and Zane stay. Zane stays in the room with Derek.

Derek isn't privy to the hour long conversation between Mikael and Nick. But when Mikael comes back, the look he gives Derek says enough and Derek has had an hour to work things up to the worst possible scenario in his own mind. Mikael is highly disappointed in his pet. Derek is in trouble. Derek wants to hide. He hides.

The fire leaves his eyes. The gaze cast up to his Master is loving and trusting, guilty and seeking forgiveness. That other version of himself is in the driver's seat.

"May I please you, Master?"


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the episode 8x18 - Restoration
> 
> What if Carl Buford didn't die? What if he lived and escaped from prison? This is going to be an AU where this happens. It's going to take Derek many places and get very dark and twisted. If you are triggered by non-consensual rape elements, this isn't the fic for you.
> 
> This is Part 2 of the A Lion Tamed Series. Please read Part 1 first.

"May I please you, Master?"

"No." Mikael shakes his head, his voice eerily calm. "No, you do not get to hide behind that mindless, brainless part of you. Not here, not with me."

His Master might as well have dealt him the harshest of blows. Not only is he not looking at him with appreciation and admiration, he's just called him mindless and brainless. Yes, he's called him that to that other, stronger, part of himself. It's different when said to this half of his mind. Is that what he is? A mindless and brainless thing?

"I'm sorry, Master." Derek looks to the floor at his knees. "I'm sorry."

His Master immediately grabs his chin, bruisingly hard, fingers digging into skin as he lifts Derek's gaze back up to him. "You know which one I want. I'll deal with you when you come back to me."

His Master leaves him there, going off into his closet to change out of his suit. Derek wishes he were in there watching him change. When he emerges again, his Master plucks an electronic tablet from his desk. He sits in the high-backed armchair by the fireplace, by the small table, by Derek and his pallet, but he pays Derek no mind, looking at the tablet instead.

They stay like this a long time. Dinner comes. His Master feeds him as he usually does. Derek eagerly reaches for the food to show his Master how good he can be. Then he's immediately ignored again.

Derek holds a conversation in his own mind.

_Look what you've done._

_I know. I shouldn't have said no._

_He heard you. Now he hates us. He won't even look at us. We're a mindless, brainless thing._

_He'll look at me._

_But not me._

_You're me. He'll look at us. I just need to be in the driver's seat._

_Will you get in the drivers seat? Please, I don't want him to be angry with us. Please. Say the right things to make him happy. Just be good, like we're supposed to be. We're supposed to be good. He's supposed to love us._

_What do you think he'll do to me?_

_Punishment. It's okay. We deserve it._

_We deserve it._

_We'll just get through it and things will be okay again. He'll want us again._

_We shouldn't be trying to get him to want us. We should be trying to get the hell out of here._

_Please, I need you to take care of us._

There's no answer. But that other version of himself is scared. Derek doesn't like that he's scared. It makes the hero complex he used to have in his old life wake up. Just as he once wanted to save all the pets in the Mistress's harem, he wants to protect that absolutely subservient side of him that he'd created out of sheer survival.

That other version of Derek thinks of Mikael as his Master, is crushed by his anger. Derek just thinks of him as Mikael right now, Antoine's older brother, the man who bought him, the man who feels obligated to him because of his brother.

Derek has to fight to get out, not because that other half of him is trying to stop him, but because that half of him isn't the only part of him that's scared. He just knows that one half is better equipped to deal with Mikael's anger than the other.

Mikael is still staring at his tablet and it's past the time when Mikael would have normally gone to bed when the shift finally happens. Derek stares at Mikael, trying to figure out what to say. He's scared. He doesn't like being scared.

As if he has a sixth sense about Derek, as if he's been tuned in to Derek the entire time he's looked like he's been ignoring him, Mikael is the first to speak. "What do you have to say for yourself?" He doesn't even look up from his tablet.

"I shouldn't have said no." He says, then belatedly adds the 'master' that is whispered at him in his mind. "Master."

Now how to explain himself. "I was alone and I was thinking too much and Nick wouldn't talk to me and I..." He what? What did he do wrong?

_No is a bad word. Confronting Nick was a bad thing._

"Nick did what he was supposed to do. You did not." Mikael is finally looking up to him.

Derek looks back. "He's not supposed to talk to me?"

"That is his choice. It's not your choice, nor is it your concern." Mikael sets the tablet in his lap. "Do you know where your concern should be placed, Derek?"

He knows what the answer is. But he doesn't want to say it. In the end, he says it because he knows that it will help smooth things over, but it comes out as a question. "With you?" And then, after a pause. "Master."

Mikael laughs. He cants his head back and laughs, full and rich and amused. He's still grinning when he looks back to Derek. "Oh there must be a war inside of you every second of every day. No wonder you're tired."

"I'm not a mindless, brainless thing, if that's what you mean." Derek should say 'master' here, but he doesn't. He glares at Mikael, waiting for some kind of retort.

Mikael leans in, gaze zeroed in on Derek and speaking every word slowly and succinctly as if daring Derek to argue with this next statement. "A part of you is a mindless, brainless thing."

There is no argument. Nick's not speaking to him is a choice Nick has made. Derek is guilty as sin. He's broken the rules. And yes, there is a part of him that is almost a mindless, brainless thing. Not so mindless and brainless that it won't do what's necessary to survive though.

"He's not as stupid as you think." This time Derek is zeroed in on Mikael, daring him to argue that fact.

There is no argument. All the other man does is set his tablet aside and stand up. "Heel, Derek."

Derek isn't sure if he's supposed to stand or crawl. He decides to crawl after Mikael over to his large pallet at the foot of the bed. He's neither applauded nor reprimanded for this decision.

"Stand. Face the bed."

Derek stands on his pallet and faces the expansive bed from the foot of it.

The ties at his wrists at his back are undone. Mikael steps up on the mahogany footboard of the bed and reaches up to the top of one of the tall posts at the corner. He twists open the top of the posts and pulls a strap and cuff from the inside of the post. "Arm."

Derek hesitates, then gives Mikael his arm, lifting it up above his head. A cuff is snapped around his wrist.

Mikael moves to the other post at the foot of the bed and does the same. Having Derek move toward the center. The straps seem to be tight elastic, taking great effort to pull. They keep his arms spread wide above his head.

After his wrists are restrained, Mikael disappears to his closet and comes back with a black metal bar with cuffs on either end of it. Those cuffs are snapped around his ankles, forcing his legs spread apart.

There Derek is, legs and arms spread, facing the bed, as Mikael disappears back into the closet. When he returns, he's naked. The lights are shut off. Only the moon sheds light on the room through the windows. Mikael gets in bed beneath the covers.

"Now you will look the entire night at where your concerns and attention should be." Mikael speaks into the darkness. "Goodnight, Derek."

Derek does not tell Mikael goodnight.

 

* * *

 

For the entire night, Derek is made to stay there like that and look at his Master's bed and the man in it. Again, Mikael gets up in the middle of the night to smoke. Cloves, it smells like. He doesn't get out of the bed this time. He reaches to one of the bedside stands, gets the cigarette, ashtray and a lighter, and lights up right there, looking at Derek in the moonlit room, Derek looking back at him until Mikael is done with the clove, puts it out in an ashtray and falls back to sleep.

It's hard to get any sleep in this position. Derek almost dozes a few times, then his head jerks back up to see the outline of Mikael beneath the sheets. Sheets that are silken, like Antoine's used to be, only these are a golden tint.

_Our Master is handsome, isn't he? I like looking at him. We get to watch him sleep like this._

_He's an asshole._

_So are you sometimes. He can be an asshole and still be handsome._

_I can't sleep when you're talking._

_You won't sleep like this anyway. Thank you for keeping me safe._

Derek doesn't reply to that voice in his head. Mikael is handsome and it's nice to feel like he has a purpose outside of pleasing someone else. It's nice to feel like he's keeping someone safe. He's gotten no sleep as sunlight starts to creep into the room. His whole night has been almost dozing, holding conversations with himself in his head and continually watching the outline of the man in the bed in front of him.

The sun is shining bright when Mikael begins to stir. Derek is somewhere in between his personalities, a little bit of each. Mikael sits up in his bed, reaches for another clove, lights it. He's sat, propped up against his pillows, looking at Derek and smoking.

"What did you do wrong, Derek?"

He's had all night to think about this. Derek has a laundry list. "I said the word no. I should have just waited for you to get back and not... become so worked up in my mind. I said the word no."

"You're also disrespectful."

"Master." It's too late to say it. But Derek says it anyway.

"You should never have even approached Nick. You should never have questioned where his loyalties lie. I assure you that where both Zane and Nick are concerned, you and I are their priority. This isn't just a job to them. They care about us, you and I, and what we are to each other."

Mikael takes another drag of his clove before continuing. "I spoke with Nick for a long while yesterday evening. He thinks the Mistress sent him with you because you were so close to broken when you heard of my brother's death. The Mistress thought that Nick would help hold you together."

He pauses here, pulling the ashtray from the bed stand to the mattress beside him. "I ask you, who has started putting you back together? Who has been trying to give you your voice back? Who has showed you more kindness, Nick or myself?"

The answer to all of those questions, at this point, is easily Mikael. Derek wants to make him out to be the devil. He wants to villain-ize him. Mikael can be smart and sometimes abrasive, but he's put this version of Derek back in the driver's seat. He's awoken Derek's mind, speaking to him beyond just the physical as no one else has in so long. He let Derek keep a part of Antoine in the collar. He's made Derek feel beautiful again.

"You, Master." The truth is the truth. Nick is his and Mikael's guard, plain and simple. Nick's allegiance is to the Mistress, to Mikael. His motives are questionable. Mikael is... something else. Derek refuses to call him 'Master' in his mind just yet, if ever.

"Where should your attention always be?"

"With you." Derek answers. "Master."

"Even when I'm not in the room, your thoughts should be with me." Mikael puts out the butt of his clove in the ashtray, sets the ashtray back on the table, then crawls along the mattress toward Derek. His hands slide up Derek's sides. "I will always come back to you. I never want to return to what I heard and saw yesterday."

"I'm sorry." Derek hates that he means those words, that he really does feel sorry for what he'd done. Did he really do anything wrong by confronting Nick? A part of him says no. Most of him says yes.

"I know. I know that you're sorry." Mikael kisses him then, a kiss that's slow and sweet, the other man on his knees at the foot of the bed, Derek still bound and standing at the foot. Derek is compliant, kissing Mikael back. He likes this kiss. It's almost tentative in nature, Mikael testing Derek, Derek testing Mikael.

Mikael's hands cup either side of Derek's face and he pulls back. Something snaps at the back of Derek's neck, the collar loosened. Derek's heart skips a beat before picking back up again and his breath catches in his throat as Mikael pulls the collar away.

"You chose my brother. Now you will choose me." The collar is laid on the bed where Derek can see it, golden and beautiful, the onyx gems sparkling as if they're winking at him, beckoning him closer, begging him to do whatever it takes to get the collar back around his neck.

Derek hates that he needs a collar around his neck, specifically _that_ collar. His distaste for the fact doesn't make it any less true.

Leaving the bed, Mikael goes across the room to the chest of drawers. He returns with a long, slim black box that he has to unlock. Inside are several vials with many unused syringes. Derek starts to shake his head but stops himself. Whatever this is, he wants the collar back so he'll do it.

Mikael picks one of the vials and fills the syringe. The needle is put at Derek's left buttock after the skin is cleaned with an alcohol swab. Then the syringe is tossed into the garbage and the vial replaced.

Derek starts to feel it immediately, whatever it is. His entire body is tingling, alive, electric. It sweeps through him, a desire to feel, to fuck, to be fucked, anything that would bring him satisfaction. His cock twitches, already hard and full because of the pump in his arm, but now alive with want. Derek shifts uncomfortably, as much as he can. He's still standing spread-eagle at the foot of the bed.

What the hell kind of drug could do this to him? At this rate he'll be ready to spill sooner rather than later.

As if reading his thoughts, Mikael is right there beside him, fingers pressing to the base of the plug in his ass. "Don't you dare, not without my permission."

Derek emits a strange, strangled sound as he tries to get control over his body, over his own mind. There's no control to be had. Antoine is in control. His body is an instrument that Derek has no idea how to play. But oh how it needs to be played.

"Please..." He whispers.

Mikael continues to toy with the plug in Derek's ass. Derek's body is writhing with need. "If you cum without my permission, the collar remains on the bed. Understood?"

His entire body is trembling. But he nods. "Yes, Master." He will pass this test

Mikael leaves him there in his own misery.

Even with no sleep in two days, the symbolism of his collar on Mikael's bed coupled with his body in some kind of sexual overdrive, even more so than the day-to -day that he's learned to deal with, is not lost on him. This is a mind game. It's his punishment for approaching Nick without permission. It's his punishment for baiting Nick. It's his punishment for saying the word no. It's his punishment for not truly submitting to Mikael.

Hours pass. There's a clock on one of the bedside tables. Derek sometimes glances at it. Eventually he quits looking because every minute is painstakingly slow. Every minute, Derek isn't sure he'll make it to the next. He hears his own heart, his own breath, quick, heavy and loud, but it's nothing like being in a box. This is the height of sexual pleasure, but prolonged and stalled, Derek trying so damn hard not to let himself tip over that edge.

Mind over body.

_I deserve this. I can get through it. I can do this._

_You can do this. You're stronger than me. I don't think Mikael is as bad as you think he is._

_You're a really bad judge of character lately._

_He's done a lot for us._

_We're an obligation._

_I don't think that's true. I think he cares about us._

_Like we thought Nick cared about us._

_Nick does care about us. You put him in a bad situation. Like our Master said, it's his choice. Now it's our choice. I choose Mikael._

One hour. Two. Five. Six. This is torture, having to stare at something and forced to want so badly that he can't think about anything else. Right at the sixth hour mark, it starts to become bearable again. He can do this. That collar will be his. He'll choose to be with Mikael. He'll choose Mikael.

Except the thin long box is brought out again, another needle filled, Derek feels the prick and the rush in his veins. His body comes to life again. He trembles. He speaks Mikael's name. He calls him Master. He begs him. Mikael leaves him again and there he is locked in a battle of wills, staring at his collar in Mikael's bed, golden collar on golden silk.

Derek makes obscene sounds and tries not to look at the clock. He looks at the collar. He looks at the bed. Madness creeps in. He wants... he needs...

_Do you think he'll fuck us when this is over? Shit._

_You can do this._

_I'm trying._

_He might fuck us. He might not. It isn't up to us. Do you want him to fuck us?_

_Yes._

_Our Master is handsome, isn't he?_

_Yes._

_You can do this._

_I can do this._

_We choose Mikael._

_Yes._

Night falls, Mikael prepares for bed. He's naked and he stands behind Derek's trembling body, playing with the plug in his ass again.

"Please, please..." Derek whispers, pressing his ass back against that touch.

"Not yet, Derek." The box is brought out again. "Do you want another shot?"

_No is a bad word._

"If it..." Derek starts and then shakes his head. That other Derek would say 'if it pleases you'. He wants Mikael to know that this is him, the Derek that Mikael wants. "Do you want me to have another one, Master?"

"Yes, I do."

"Then yeah. I can take it, Master. I can take it." Derek isn't sure he can take it. But he's sure as hell going to try. He wants that collar, Mikael's collar with Antoine's gems in it. He wants to make things okay with Mikael. He's surprised to find that he doesn't just want that for half of him, but for all of him.

"Oh, my strong, brave lion." Mikael coos, his hands sliding over Derek's skin.

Derek is given another shot and he emits a strange whining sound as his body comes to life again. Pre is dripping from his cock, just a slight drizzle that Mikael swipes up and feeds to Derek. Derek takes it willingly.

The lights are turned off and Mikael slides beneath the sheets into bed. The golden collar shimmers in the moonlight streaming through the windows, shifts each time Mikael does. His collar in his Master's bed, everything in front of him is his, it's the most important thing, it's what he wants, he just has to prove it.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the episode 8x18 - Restoration
> 
> What if Carl Buford didn't die? What if he lived and escaped from prison? This is going to be an AU where this happens. It's going to take Derek many places and get very dark and twisted. If you are triggered by non-consensual rape elements, this isn't the fic for you.
> 
> This is Part 2 of the A Lion Tamed Series. Please read Part 1 first.

During his mid-night smoke, Mikael has slid to the foot of the bed. On his knees before Derek, he runs his fingertips over Derek's shuddering body. Derek's dark skin is layered with a sheen of perspiration. Mikael swipes up some more pre and puts it to Derek's lips. Derek suckles the slick away from his Master's fingertips. 

Mikael kisses him again, his fingers tracing around Derek's neck where the collar would be, should be, will be. His Master tastes like cloves and his own cum. Derek likes that taste. Derek wants to burrow a hole and fill it with that taste and drown himself in it.

This time Derek doesn't beg. Mikael will come back to him in his own time just as Derek is getting where he needs to be in his own time.

At some point in the night, after Mikael's mid-night smoke, the drugs start to become bearable again. Derek can better control himself so that he doesn't have to think about not letting himself cum every second of every minute. It's still a struggle, but it's an easier struggle.

The collar still seems to glow on the bed. Derek is looking at the silhouette of the man though. The room still smells faintly of cloves. Derek can still feel Mikael's lips on his. He flashes back to the nightmare from the other night before it had gone horribly wrong. Antoine encouraging him with Mikael.

Mikael is not Antoine. But Mikael is his Master now. Derek will never forget what Anotine was to him, Stockholm or not, but he finally lets go of him. He can finally let go of what he'd had with him.

There's only Mikael.

Derek cries in the dark, tears slipping silently down his cheeks. He mourns in the dark. He cries until there are no more tears to shed. He wants in the dark. He needs. He desires. Then something strange happens: he almost smiles.

Rebirth is beautiful. Derek is beautiful. Mikael thinks he's beautiful.

It's hours later. The sun is just starting to lighten the sky outside the windows when Mikael stirs. The room is still mostly dark. Derek isn't shuddering anymore. His cock is still heavy and needy and he can't feel his arms and hands, but he doesn't care.

Derek doesn't say a word. He watches Mikael stretch beneath the sheets and doze a little bit more. He sees a glance cast his way before Mikael finally reaches for his morning smoke. Mikael sits up, the smoldering ember of the clove trying to take Derek's attention away from his Master. Derek looks at Mikael. He doesn't look away. He can just make out a slight grin at Mikael's lips.

"Good morning, Derek."

"Good morning, Master." He can hear the difference in his tone, in the way he says 'master'. It's more respectful, less hesitation, less afterthought. He'd say it's because he hasn't slept for two nights straight and hasn't eaten in as long, but that would be a lie.

"Do you want your collar?"

"I want you. But it doesn't matter what I want, Master."

"Yet another way in which you are misinformed. Others might not have cared, but I do care what you think. I care what and who you want. You might not always get what you want, but I like knowing what you want." Mikael's lips slowly pull into another grin. "I like that you just said that you want me. I like even more that you sound like you mean it. It pleases me."

"If you're my Master can we still talk about things?"

"We always have."

"I'm probably still going to mess up."

"Oh, I look forward to it. In fact, you've said two whole things and you haven't called me Master except in the hypothetical sense."

"Master." Derek is quick to correct himself. "It's just that things get confusing in my head sometimes."

"I know. I want to help you with that." Mikael slips up to his knees and shuffles in close to the edge of the bed in front of Derek again. Derek is once again struck by how brilliantly blue Mikael's eyes are. The clove still dangles seductively from his lips. "Do you want me to help you with that, Derek?"

"Yes, Master." Everything is Mikael. Everything is cloves and the way elegant hands slide over his body and Mikael who will help him sort out his own mind. "Fix me."

"You know that if I'm helping you, I'll make you into what I want you to be?"

"I know, Master."

"Do you want me to be your Master, Derek?"

"Yes. I want you to be my Master." Derek says. And he means it. "I'll be your..."

"Mine."

"Yours, Master."

"Take me inside of you." Mikael draws in a deep breath of clove smoke and then kisses Derek.

It only occurs to him as an after thought that Derek realizes he's supposed to inhale the kiss. He does that, literally taking what was inside of Mikael into himself. He tastes cloves again. He tastes Mikael. He tastes his future.

_I'm okay._ For a moment it's just him, no other versions, no other voices. Then Derek feels bad for casting that other half of him aside and pulls him back in. _We're okay._

_Our Master will take care of us. Trust him._ That other voice chimes in.

Mikael puts the clove between Derek's lips and slips off of the bed and around Derek. Derek holds onto the slim, spiced cigarette. He doesn't take a drag. He wasn't told to and he's never been a smoker anyway. Mikael has slipped the plug from Derek's ass. Derek hears it tossed to the floor. Derek groans around the cigarette as he's filled with something else, Mikael, the width of him stretches him wide so much that he's thankful for the plug he'd been wearing to prepare him.

It occurs to Derek at this moment that Mikael is a genius who has planned this exactly as it's played out, from start to finish. He can look back and see all the lines connecting, Mikael playing him as Derek is an instrument he's proficient at. But in the end, Derek doesn't care.

This is everything he needs. Mikael is kissing and biting at his shoulders, his neck. Elegant pale hands slide over his dark skin. Derek has a moment outside of himself where he can see them together. Mikael is handsome. Derek is beautiful. Together, they're something special and new. 

His Master fucks him slow and deliberate, sure to force Derek to feel every inch of friction in that most sensitive place. Oh how Derek _feels_ him, just another version of taking his Master inside of him, the smoke from the clove curling at his nostrils and lips, the man himself slow-fucking into him from behind. Teeth clamp so hard at a spot on his shoulder that he thinks Mikael might have pierced skin and drawn blood.

Everything inside of Derek is screaming YES, again and again. There is nothing about this moment that isn't about Mikael and him together. He is Mikael's. Mikael is his Master, giving him what he needs because Derek is finally giving his Master what he wants.

"Say my name."

"Mikael, Master. Your name is Mikael." 

Derek pushes his ass back against Mikael's cock each time it pushes into him. Those muscles milk his Master sometimes intentionally, doing what he can to bring Mikael even more pleasure, and sometimes of their own accord. His Master's cock is not only wide, but long. It reaches deep inside of him, eliciting small sounds of pleasure each time it slides in or out. 

Derek is so sensitive there. Again, he's having to work not to cum. Every second. Every minute. Not without permission. His Master will give this to him. He will. He will.

Mikael's stamina, his ability to stay in control, is amazing to Derek. He doesn't resort to fucking wildly, at least not this, their first time. He doesn't give in to the need to go faster, to fuck harder. Everything is slow. Everything is controlled. Surprisingly enough, Derek doesn't want it any other way. This, in this moment, is perfection. His body, his mind, his heart and soul, could want for nothing more than this.

When Mikael's spill is inside Derek, warm and wet and just where it should be, Mikael whispers into his ear. "Cum now, Derek."

There's barely any clove left but filter. Derek groans around the filter and he spills onto the sheets at the foot of the bed. When he thinks he's done, Mikael bucks into him again and he cums again. And again.

And once more because his Master is generous and Derek has waited so long.

Mikael's hand is splayed over Derek's abdomen. "Mine." He whispers in his ear.

"Yours, Master." Derek murmurs.

 

* * *

 

When Derek is let down from the restraints, he's made to go another whole day without sleeping. Mikael wants to spend the day with him and so they do. They go through their morning routine and Derek is so glad to have it.

Derek is taken to a private gym area that's also on this same floor with Mikael's room. Nick and Zane are with them. Mikael asks what kind of training he has, what kinds of workouts he usually does. Derek doesn't glance at Nick even though Nick was the last person he'd worked out with. Instead, Derek tells Mikael about his training with the FBI in judo, self defense and infiltration tactics. He tells Mikael the workout routine he used to go through several times a week.

His Master makes sure that their guards understand that that's the same routine they're to adhere to with Derek when they're in here. They say they understand.

The rest of the day is spent with Derek kneeling on his pallet by the fireplace, Mikael sitting in his chair. They talk. Mikael asks about Derek about his life from before. He makes Derek talk about that life that he's tried so hard to forget, to separate himself from, that life that he couldn't fit into anymore even if he wanted to. Mikael asks about his family, his friends, the BAU team who are also friends, and Derek gives him whatever he wants to know.

He's hand fed lunch and dinner. After dinner on the first night, Mikael goes over to the freshly made bed where the collar sits neatly in the middle. He brings it back over to Derek.

Derek can't help that his spine pulls up just a little bit straighter in anticipation. "Yes, Master." He says the words before Mikael even asks.

It makes Mikael smile and roll his eyes to the ceiling. "Yes what, exactly?"

As usual, Mikael wants him to use his words. Derek is learning that his Master doesn't want a canned, well-rehearsed and scripted response. Words are powerful things. Derek needs to learn how to _make_ them powerful.

"Yes, you own me. Yes, you're my Master. Yes, I want you to be my Master. Yes, I need what you can give me. Yes, I wanna give you what you need and what you want. Yes, I want to wear your collar, Master. Mikael. I'm yours, Master."

There's a brief moment where Mikael looks overwhelmed with emotion. He quickly hides that and leans down to clasp the collar about Derek's neck.

"I'm yours too." His Master whispers to him. 

Derek feels a corner of his own lips tug, just slightly, the beginnings of a smile that never fully turns into what it could be. Someday, maybe. He's only just brushing the surface of what he could be, of what Mikael will make him into.

That night Derek is invited up into the bed with Mikael. His Master pulls the silken sheets over the both of them. It's the first time Derek has been covered up in a long time. His Master's body presses close to his. The moonlight spills in from the windows. There are soft murmurs from the room Nick and Zane share. All is right with the world.

Derek sleeps for the first time in three days. There are no nightmares, no ghosts, just warmth, safety and blessed sleep.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the episode 8x18 - Restoration
> 
> What if Carl Buford didn't die? What if he lived and escaped from prison? This is going to be an AU where this happens. It's going to take Derek many places and get very dark and twisted. If you are triggered by non-consensual rape elements, this isn't the fic for you.
> 
> This is Part 2 of the A Lion Tamed Series. Please read Part 1 first.

In the next several days, Mikael gives Derek exactly what he's needed since Antoine had sent him away: a routine. It goes something like this with minor variations depending on Mikael's whims.

They wake and sometimes Derek pleases Mikael, sometimes they go straight to the gym where Mikael runs on a treadmill while Zane and Nick workout with weights or spar with Derek. Back in Mikael's room, they go through their morning bathroom and closet routine. Then Derek kneels on his pallet while Mikael works. Sometimes Mikael has to leave for work. While anyone from Mikael to Nick to Zane feed Derek lunch, Mikael is always back for dinner.

Sometimes Derek gets to sleep in Mikael's bed with him. Sometimes he sleeps on the pallet. Sometimes Mikael calls to him during the night and Derek joins him in his bed. Derek wakes up when Mikael does for his middle of the night smoke, just in case Mikael wants him for anything. Sometimes Mikael talks to him then. Sometimes they have sex. Sometimes Mikael makes Derek take a drag from his cigarette.

There's nothing outrageous in that first week, or even in the second and third. Mikael is learning Derek's body, mind and soul. Derek is learning the same in Mikael.

Derek is keen enough to know that Mikael is laying a foundation for them, something that is already more sturdy and strong and immovable than anything Derek has ever had.

They talk a lot. Mikael is always asking about Derek, about who he used to be, about things he once liked and did in his old life. Derek asks about Mikael in return. Mikael talks about his brother and the way they grew up, mostly. They were a well-off family. His father started the business that Mikael now runs. Antoine had only ever been interested in the participation of it, not the running of it. Antoine had his kinks. Mikael has his own.

Derek also learns that Mikael had once been married. It didn't work out.

They talk about the political climate and religion and philosophy and art. Derek isn't very good with religion or philosophy or art, but he tries to hold his own as Mikael seems as if he could talk about them for hours. He asks Mikael about sports and his Master has no opinion that first day. The very next day Mikael surprises him by having done research on the teams Derek used to like and updates Derek on their advancements. Derek's mind is stimulated in every way and he loves it.

He's still his Master's personal. But he's more than that. He feels like he has something of both worlds. He feels like he has the things that he needs from both worlds. 

Make no mistake that who he is now could never fully embrace and exist in the life he had before in the FBI or in the life in the Mistress's harem where the only stimulation is sex. To have to be in one or the other would break him, really and truly. After his time back at home after the crash, Derek is fully aware of this. A circle is never a square no matter how much it tries to be, and vice versa. There is no going backward. There's only forward. Mikael is showing him that there's a middle road here where he can exist and get everything he needs.

Mikael thinks Derek's mind is fascinating. Derek now thinks the same of Mikael.

Mikael adores Derek. Derek is pretty damn fond of Mikael too, in spite of himself.

 

* * *

 

There are no words for how good it feels to be working out again. His body needs it. His mind needs it. He'd once used the gym to work out his frustrations and run from his past, to perfect the outside so that no one like Carl Buford would ever think to prey on him ever again. Now he finds solace in it.

His Master is always there, sometimes running on the treadmill, sometimes just sitting on a bench and watching Nick and Zane work Derek out. The two men play spot for him when he's working the heavier weights. They spar with him.

Reminding his muscles of his self defense and judo moves takes a bit. Neither Nick or Zane know judo so in the beginning, Derek can surprise them and get the upper-hand much of the time. The moment he has the upper-hand, he relinquishes it as he's supposed to do. Eventually his sparring partners catch on to most of his tricks. There are some tricks that they never see coming.

Nick sometimes grins at Derek. They never say much though outside of 'good move' and general cursing when they're brought down in sparring. Nick looks proud of Derek though.

Derek is more concerned about Mikael being proud of him.

Zane is the talkative one. Derek is learning that he's got a wry sense of humor that reminds him of Rossi. Zane had seemed so stoic in the beginning. The more they spar, the more they get to know each other, the more Derek likes Zane.

Nick and Zane will always keep him and Mikael safe. Zane and Nick will always protect them and what they are to each other.

 

* * *

 

They're well into week four when Derek is finally taken into other parts of this massive building. Mikael lives on the top floor. Other Masters who work for him take up the subsequent fourteen of fifteen floors beneath them. The ground floor is a nightclub called 'Forbidden' that hosts an 'anything goes' atmosphere every night.

It's beneath that nightclub that Mikael's real business exists.

They're on the first floor of the basement. The elevator doors open up to a large communal room with cubbies and tables and luxurious couches and pallets of every size and shape. There are a few people cleaning the room. These people are naked. Derek is naked too save for his piercings and collar. Derek thinks his collar sets him apart from the rest.

He walks just behind Mikael to his right side with his hands clasped behind his back. His hair, nails and skin have been freshly groomed in all the ways Mikael likes them. Gold beads have been added into his braids this time, interspersed throughout his hair.

Mikael leads him through the communal room, down a hallway and to a smaller room filled with other men and women, most of them dressed impeccably. The ones that aren't dressed as if they just came out of an expensive clothing catalogue are naked, like himself. Those that are naked each have their own collars, each unique, none that looks like his own.

There's a circle of black, high-backed armchairs in this room, some of them with matching plush square pallets in front of them, some of them without.

Every head swivels in his direction as he enters the room behind his Master. There's a brief pause. Derek refuses to shy away. Instead, he squares his shoulders and lifts his chin defiantly under the scrutiny. He only has a second to think that this might be the wrong thing. Then everyone wearing clothes is all smiles and appreciation.

"Oh Mikael, he's lovely."

"Look at those eyes."

"Everything you said he was."

"A lion if I ever saw one."

"Such a wild creature."

"I've never seen anything like him."

"Of course you would find something like that, Mikael, and make it yours."

"Are you kidding? It would take something like that to pin Mikael down."

"Too big for my tastes. But just what you've always been looking for, I know."

"He's beautiful, Mikael."

"Yes, yes..." Mikael says, looking to Derek with a sense of pride that makes Derek feel warm on the inside. "He's beautiful. And he's mine. Everyone, this is Derek, my personal."

Nods are sent in his direction but nothing more. No one speaks directly to him. The Masters settle in their chairs in a circle. Each one of them has a tablet and phone with them. Derek kneels on the pallet by Mikael's chair. Other personals kneel by their Masters. Some Masters and Mistresses don't have Personals. Yet.

For two hours Derek listens to reports from the other Masters about their work. He's filled with conflict as they discuss the buying and selling of human beings as if they were purchasing and buying a new sweater or selling an old pair of shoes.

They discuss training techniques, problematic pets that don't seem to be doing what they should or acclimating well and how to better work with them, the possibility of purchasing other slaves from one venue or another and punishments that need to be dealt out for the week. They discuss finances and additions they want to make to the building.

Derek learns names, first names only, of the Masters. Their personals are never addressed aside from an occasional pat of the head. Mikael, every now and then, rests his hand at the back of Derek's neck or on his shoulder. One time he hooks his fingers in the back of Derek's collar and tugs, not enough to choke, just enough so that it's pressed against his skin, so that he can feel the weight of it just that little bit extra. Derek likes that.

The other personals keep their eyes lowered, all except one. Derek catches the eye of one of the personals, a woman, who watches him. She belongs to a Master named Alexei. When he looks at her a corner of her lips twitches. Derek's eyes smile more than any other part of him.

She's like him. She doesn't look down.

 

* * *

 

After the meeting is over, Derek is heeling behind Mikael and following him back toward the elevator. Nick and Zane were waiting for them just outside of the Master's circle.

"We sometimes have gatherings here, auctions and parties. The rooms off to the sides are for privacy if and when it's wanted." Mikael is talking to him.

Derek is looking around the entire room and all he can think is that his Master just said the word 'auctions'. Somehow, Derek doesn't think they're auctioning art and antiques. Again, he feels conflicted.

Instead of going up in the elevator, they go down, down, down... Derek has a memory of stairs and being far beneath the Earth in the underground of the catacombs. He unclasps his hands to touch his collar and make sure it's beautiful gold with black onyx gems and not the rusty metal one tethered to the floor in the concrete room.

"You're okay." Nick whispers into his ear.

Mikael looks back just in time to see Derek lower his hands again and clasp them behind his back. The backs of Mikael's fingers slide down Derek's face to his chin, pushing up just slightly. Derek easily gets the message. He's a wild thing. He should look the part, not be afraid. Derek looks the part. Mikael grins.

The floor they open up to has rooms on every bit of hallway. Derek catches glimpses of naked people kneeling in those rooms. There are armed guards standing outside of the rooms. Some of the Masters disperse into those rooms. Derek sees one of the Master's pick up a whip and crack it. Everyone in the room flinches. One of the Mistresses enters a room and says good morning. The entire room says good morning to her.

"Master, what is this?" Derek asks.

"This is where we make good pets to be sold, Derek. I assure you that no one leaves here unless they are well-trained and prepared for the life of a pet or slave ahead of them."

_This is wrong._

_This is Mikael. He isn't wrong. He's our Master._

_This is wrong._

_We love Mikael._

_Yeah, we like Mikael. This is still wrong._

Somehow, all of this doesn't compute with the Mikael he's spent the last near month with cloistered away in the safe haven of the top floor of this building. It tilts Derek's world just a little bit sideways.

There's a large communal area, not quite as sleek as the one upstairs, but still rather nice. There are a few naked people lounging about. All of them come to attention when Mikael enters the room; on their knees, knees spread wide, hands on their thighs, palm up and head bowed, waiting.

"Stay with Zane and Nick, Derek."

Derek watches, his guards flanking either side of him, as Mikael walks through the room inspecting each pet in the same way the Mistress sometimes did with the harem when they were all together in the same room. Only this is much more clinical. Mikael selects several out of the pack. The others, he tells the men and women overseeing the room what needs to be done to better the unselected.

Those who were selected look either excited or scared. Those unselected look deflated or relieved.

_This is our Master. We love our Master._

_Yeah, maybe so. This is still wrong._

 

* * *

 

Later that evening, they're back up at the top floor. Mikael is hand-feeding Derek his dinner when he speaks up. "I think every Master and Mistress in my employ is envious in some way. Your light shone bright today, Derek. I'm proud of my fierce lion."

"Thank you, Master." Truthfully, Derek isn't feeling so fierce right now.

Mikael leans in, fingers gently cupping Derek's chin to ensure that Derek is looking at him. "Tell me what you're thinking. Don't get lost in that head of yours again. Tell me."

Piercing blue eyes look at him. Derek's browns look back. "I..." He really doesn't want to speak badly about his Master. "I just saw a lot today, Master. My brain is processing."

"Of course." Mikael leans back in his chair, crosses one leg over the other. "You used to hunt people like me down and put us in jail. Do you want to put me in jail, Derek?"

"No, Master." And what does that truth say about him? He doesn't like those implications.

He understands now why they spent weeks together up here so that Mikael could build that foundation between them before he showed him the things he'd seen today.

Mikael is smart. He's learned everything about Derek and is using all of that to lock Derek in with him in spite of who Derek was or is or will be.

"I appreciate that." Mikael says around a small grin.

"Why do you do it?"

"This is what I know. It's what I've always known. It's what I'm good at." Mikael plucks a small piece of smoked pork from the plate and holds it up for Derek.

Derek lifts up on his knees and takes it.

"We all have our lane, Derek. I'm exactly where I should be. So are you."


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the episode 8x18 - Restoration
> 
> What if Carl Buford didn't die? What if he lived and escaped from prison? This is going to be an AU where this happens. It's going to take Derek many places and get very dark and twisted. If you are triggered by non-consensual rape elements, this isn't the fic for you.
> 
> This is Part 2 of the A Lion Tamed Series. Please read Part 1 first.

Weeks pass. Sometimes Mikael takes Derek with him on his rounds. Sometimes he doesn't. Derek keeps up with his routine. Mikael demands routine. Derek spars with Nick and Zane. Mikael sends a Masseuse up one day to work Derek's muscles. 

He and Mikael have sex. Normal sex. Sex that leaves Derek breathless and sated and wanting for more. Sex that borders dangerously close to making love. Sex that leaves Derek's entire mind, not just half of it, feeling dangerously close to being in love.

Deep down, Derek knows that Mikael is playing a long-term game, building more foundation for Derek to stand on for those moments when things tilt sideways in his mind. Derek can't let himself be too bothered by that, not when being with Mikael feels this good. His body, mind and soul are satisfied in every way.

Mikael tells him he's beautiful, that he's strong and fierce, that he's a survivor, that he adores him.

Those times when he goes with Mikael to his meetings and on his rounds and when he makes his selections for pets to be auctioned off, Derek sees more and more of this business. He's sad to say that this wrongness, when coupled with the rightness of Mikael's top floor where everything is as it should be, makes the wrongness seem not so wrong. He grows accustomed to it. His mind reorders it, turns it inside out into something he can accept since it's a part of Mikael.

Everything on that top floor feels so good and right. The business below is just a side note, fine print, etc.

_We love our Master._ That other version of himself says.

_Maybe._ He counters.

 

* * *

 

They've started taking dinner once a week in the large communal area on the first floor of the basement. The other Masters and Mistresses are there. The other personals are there. Derek is allowed to speak with the other personals.

He learns that the woman who doesn't look down, Alexei's personal, is named Kit. He also learns that Alexei is Mikael's closest friend outside of what his master used to have with Antoine.

"We never thought we'd see the day when Master Mikael chose a personal." Kit says. She has long red hair and freckles.

One of the other personals, another woman with long braids down her back and dark skin, shakes her head. "Usually he sticks to trying out pets before they get auctioned off."

"Derek, this is Kenya." Kit says. "She belongs to Master Frederick. And she's just jealous because Mikael used to try her out."

"You would be too if he ever had you." Kenya tells Kit.

"What's he like?" Kit asks Derek with a waggle of her eyebrows. "Everyone's always wondered what kind of Master he would be to a personal."

Derek's mind is still lingering on the fact that his Master once used Kenya. The woman seems so shy and diminutive, nothing like what his Master covets. She barely looks up from the ground.

"Uhm, he's..."

Another personal by the name of Cameron comes up to him. Cameron belongs to Master Leighton. "Are they asking you about Mikael? Because I want to hear it."

They all laugh and Derek shakes his head. "I'm not really one to kiss and tell. He's a good Master though."

They all seem let down by his answer that lacks in details. But Derek realizes that he not only wants to keep Mikael private for Mikael, but for himself too. Mikael is his. He is Mikael's. That belongs to no one else but them. Derek has so few things that are just his. This is _his_.

When it's time to eat, the personals find their respective Masters. Some of them have bowls placed in front of them that they must lean over to eat as Derek had had to do in the Catacombs and the Gallery. Some of them get hand fed from their Masters like Derek does, although none of them have to reach for their food like him. Kenya, he notices, gets no food. She kneels silently by Master Frederick, head down, hands resting palm up on her thighs.

Derek wishes he could share his food with her.

"That mouth must be heaven, Mikael."

Derek glances up to see it's Alexei who has spoken to his Master. The man is looking at him with interest.

Mikael is grinning and holds a slice of kiwi up for Derek. "He has a lovely mouth. I make use of it often, don't I, Derek?"

Derek almost grins back. Almost. He reaches his lips up for the Kiwi. "Yes, Master, you do."

Kit and one of the other personals are instructed to perform for the group of Masters. They willingly find the floor in the center of the room and start to have sex.

"Derek, do you find my friend, Master Alexei, handsome?" Mikael has leaned forward, fingers slowly petting at Derek's neck above his collar.

Derek glances back to Master Alexei. He's tanned and dark haired and about the same age as Mikael. His dark eyes almost remind Derek of Antoine. "Not as handsome as you, Master." His eyes smile because he thinks Mikael will like this answer.

Mikael's grin says that he likes it very much. "And if I told you to suck his cock?"

Derek's stomach flip-flops inside of him. He's just been Mikael's for so long now, it feels strange to think of being with anyone else. "I'm yours, Master."

"You are for my pleasure. It would please me to see your mouth on him."

Derek spots a few of the other personals pleasing their Masters, or other Masters.

"Show him what is mine, for my pleasure."

For Mikael's pleasure. Derek looks back to see Alexei has taken his cock out of his pants and his legs are spread, waiting. He watches Derek expectantly. Mikael watches Derek expectantly. Mikael said to show Master Alexei what is _mine_. Sucking Alexei doesn't mean he doesn't belong to Mikael.

Kit's pallet has been shifted to between Alexei's legs. Derek shifts over to that pallet and glances at Mikael. His Master nods at him encouragingly. Derek leans in to lick it, suck it, fuck it like he's supposed to do.

"Are you sure he won't bite it off?" Alexei asks as Derek's tongue licks up his cock a few times. "He looks dangerous, Mikael."

"He is dangerous. But tamed." Mikael answers. He's turned inward toward Derek and Alexei, giving all of his attention here rather than what's happening in the middle of the room. His hand glides over Derek's head, neck and shoulders. "My tamed lion."

"You know what a tamed lion is... it's nothing more than a kitty cat."

"Kitty cats still have claws." Mikael says. "And teeth. Show him your teeth, Derek."

_I'm not a biter._

Derek hesitates, pulls his mouth off of Master Alexei's cock and bares his teeth in something that looks like a snarl. Alexei grins. Mikael grins.

Then his Master shakes his head. "No, I want him to feel your teeth."

Derek stares at Mikael.

Mikael stares back.

Finally, Derek takes Alexei into his mouth again. It takes several minutes of sucking before he convinces himself that he can press teeth to skin. Not hard, just enough for Master Alexei to feel them.

"Ah, there they are." Alexei says.

There is no reprimand. Derek isn't attacked or scolded. There's only Mikael saying "Harder, Derek. I want him to _feel_ the teeth of my tamed lion."

Alexei teases Mikael, or maybe Derek, it's hard to tell. "You mean your kitty cat."

Derek stops sucking, just holding cock in his mouth, gaze darting between Mikael and Alexei as he tries to figure out this game he's in the middle of. Mikael's expression tells him that he better do what he says or there will be consequences. He bites harder.

_Not a biter. Not a biter. We'll never be a biter again._

_Shut up. I'm trying to think._

"Harder." His Master says.

Alexei's grin grows as if he knows precisely what Mikael's intentions are. He doesn't even flinch when Derek's teeth press harder into the skin. It should be uncomfortable. It should scare Alexei even a little bit, but it doesn't.

Mikael's fingers curl in the braids of Derek's mane at the back of his head, tugging on them slightly. "And harder."

Derek glares at his Master. He glares at Alexei. Any harder and he'll break skin. Derek bites harder.

"Those eyes..." Alexei says. It's barely noticeable, but there's a flinch in Master Alexei's expression.

"See? Dangerous." Mikael says, petting a hand over Derek's head. "Ease up, Derek. Now please him and show him how I've tamed you."

Derek eases up and does as his Master says.

"Oh, Mikael. You have a gem." Master Alexei watches Kit, his personal, in the middle of the room while enjoying Derek's mouth on him.

Derek's Master only has eyes for him. He's watching, touching Derek, staying right there with him as he does as he does as he's told. "I know. He's mine, dangerous to everyone but me."

Those words are the smoky tendrils of the cloves Mikael smokes. They twist and curl their way around his mind, heart and soul.

_I'm dangerous to everyone but Mikael._

 

* * *

 

It's another several weeks and a handful of dinners after that first dinner with the other Masters and personals. Derek likes Kit. They get along well, banter back and forth. Derek tries to talk to Kenya, but she only wants to ask after Mikael and Derek won't talk about him the way she wants him to.

A woman comes into his Master's room and takes his measurements and leaves.

Mikael broaches a new subject that night. He's invited Derek up into his bed with him tonight. It's the middle of the night. Mikael has a clove lit and the two of them are curled up in each other.

"I'll be traveling for business this week. I want you with me." Mikael says. "Thoughts?"

Derek wants to stay in the safe haven of this top floor. He doesn't fit in out there in the real world. Out there is a square. Derek is a circle.

"Don't just think it, Derek. Tell me."

"I don't fit in the real world, Master." He remembers how everyone had looked at him, even his friends. They tried not to look at him like he was a strange oddity that needed to be fixed. But how could they not look at him that way?

"Implying that this world, our world, is not real."

"That's not what I meant. I don't fit out there, Master. Everyone will stare."

"Good. Let them stare. Let them covet what they cannot have and confuse themselves over what they cannot understand."

Mikael has Derek take a drag from his clove, somehow that sooths him now, makes it seem as if he has some of Mikael inside of him.

"You'll be with me. Mine."

"Yours."

"I'm the only one that matters, the only one you would never harm."

That makes Derek grin. It's gotten to where it's easier for him to smile in the dark where no one can see.

Mikael doesn't miss a beat, not when it concerns his personal. He always sees Derek even when it seems he isn't watching. "I see that." Mikael's fingertips are at Derek's lips and his Master is on top of Derek, straddling his lap. "You can't hide from me."

"I was taught never to bite or take control, Master. You keep breaking those rules for me."

"Do I?" Mikael says this as if he's shocked, but in an over-exaggerated way that means he's teasing. "What a horrible Master I am."

"Never, Master. You're giving me life again." And Derek means that. He feels as if Mikael has been waking him up from a deep sleep inch by painstaking inch. Mikael has been walking the hallways in Derek's mind and opening all the doors that Derek had shut when he was in the basement of that house, in the catacombs of the Gallery, in the labs and in the harem.

"Who owns you, Derek?"

"You own me, Master." There is no argument to this anymore.

"Who matters to you?"

"You, Master. Only you. No one else." These answers come so easily to him now.

"Who is the only person you can't ever hurt or best or fight with?"

"Only you, Master."

"Who keeps you safe?"

"You keep me safe, Master. And Nick and Zane."

"The four of us are going on a trip in a few days, Derek." Mikael says. "Thoughts?"

"Is it somewhere where there's sunlight, Master? I love sunlight."

"Ohhhh, I can't wait to see the sunlight on your skin." Mikael's hands slide over Derek's skin, the touch warm and comfortable.

"I'm excited to see where we're going, Master."

"I'm excited to show you off to the world."

 

* * *

The next day, when Derek gets the upper-hand while sparring with both Nick and Zane, he doesn't relinquish it. They both smile at him. 

His Master is proud.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the episode 8x18 - Restoration
> 
> What if Carl Buford didn't die? What if he lived and escaped from prison? This is going to be an AU where this happens. It's going to take Derek many places and get very dark and twisted. If you are triggered by non-consensual rape elements, this isn't the fic for you.
> 
> This is Part 2 of the A Lion Tamed Series. Please read Part 1 first.

The first time Derek is taken outside of the building is a frightening thing if only because he isn't sure what to expect. That morning they skip the gym. Derek is bathed and groomed by his Master. He kneels in the closet and watches his Master get dressed. He even whistles at him as he ties the necktie around his collar.

Mikael grins at him.

"Oh sorry." Derek whistles again and follows it up with 'Master'.

Mikael laughs, rich and uninhibited. "You are cheeky, aren't you?" Once his necktie is perfectly knotted and straightened, he crosses over to Derek, grips his chin and leans over to kiss him. "It's time to dress you."

"In clothes, Master?" It might seem such a silly question outside of his current predicament. But as far as Derek is concerned, it's perfectly sound. He already wears his piercings, collar and plug. Anything more would be... different, uncomfortable.

"Yes. In clothes."

So intent has Derek been on all things Mikael, that he hasn't noticed the small section in Mikael's closet that has been cleared. There's four items on four hangers. Mikael picks off two items and instructs Derek to stand.

He's told to put his legs in the pants. They're leather and loose fitting, not so bad. Except that Derek can feel air in them. He notices that the outside of each leg is laced with thick gold string. His Master starts on one side, tightening the lace from the bottom up. It tightens the leather against his skin, leaving strips of bare skin peeking between the laces on the outside of leg and hip. Mikael works on the other side. 

Over the crotch is gold string too. No skin shows through. But Derek notices snaps there at the leather. A pull of string and snaps and his groin is easy access. Derek notices the golden string goes all the way to the back as well. Easy access.

Next there's a leather vest. Derek puts it on and as Mikael snaps the golden hooks and chains at the front, Derek notices how tailor made it is to his muscular physique. Beneath the chains holding it at the front a swath of his chest and abdomen peeks through, his navel ring visible. The 'V' of the vest leaves his collar on full display. 

Mikael opens a box and brings out some tall black boots. He takes his time lacing them up, gold laces of course, all the way up to the middle of his shins.

His Master stands him in front of the mirror, standing behind him. The leather is light-weight. The open swatches of skin let cool air in beneath. This is the closest he can get to wearing nothing if he has to wear something. Derek looks different.

"Beautiful." Mikael whispers into his ear.

Derek is beautiful.

 

* * *

 

It says something about the hubris of his Master that he feels comfortable taking his personal, a former FBI agent, out into the world at large. Then again, made up as he is, while it does draw attention, Derek barely looks like the man others might be looking for. He looks like something else. He _is_ something else.

The fact that Mikael has his own private plane doesn't surprise him. It isn't quite as over-the-top as the Mistress's was, but it isn't shabby either. It's just more practical.

Mikael is working on a conference phone call when lunch time comes. He has Zane and Nick feed Derek. Nick sits next to Zane. Derek kneels on the floor before them.

"I like your traveling threads." Zane says. "Do you like them?"

"Yeah." Derek nods, reaching up for the cubed ham Zane is offering him, Mikael-style. "I'm not used to clothes, Sir."

"Pretty sure that if The Matrix were a sexier flick, you could be in The Matrix." Zane looks at Nick. "You ever seen The Matrix, Nick?"

"I've seen it." Nick nods, offering Derek a grape, right at his lips without Derek having to reach for it.

Derek takes the grape.

"You look good." Nick tells him.

"Thank you, Sir." Now the compliment is just a compliment. Before he chose Mikael, those words might have meant something else of him.

"Yeah, you look bad ass, sexy-Matrix syle." Nick grins.

Derek almost smiles. Then they finish eating. After that conversation Derek feels even better about how he looks. Mikael hasn't quit complimenting him either. All three of his travel companions seem to be trying to make sure that Derek is as comfortable as he can be.

Eventually the plane lands. They have their own private tarmac, so Derek isn't confronted with people just yet. They get into a limo and Derek knees beside Mikael. He tries to look up out of the windows, tries to see where they are. He sees several Union Jack flags that tells him all he needs to know. They're not in the United States. He's on a completely different continent.

That eases something inside of him. Not only because no one will recognize him, but also because there's no one over here to try to get him to go back to his old life. There's Emily, but she's with Interpol and there's no reason Interpol would have anything to do with him.

Except for Emily. The people Emily works with. Emily's boyfriend. Shit.

"Your head is spinning." Mikael grips his chin and pulls Derek's gaze up to his own. "What are you thinking?"

"I know someone with Interpol, Master." Derek sees no reason not to give the truth. Zane and Nick look over to him. "I might know a few people with Interpol, based out of London. Are we in London, Master?"

"Yes, we are. Who do you know?"

"Agent Prentiss. I used to work with her." More than work. They were very good friends, such good friends that Derek had come to visit her in London more than once.

Mikael nods. "It changes nothing. Are you the same man they knew, Derek?"

"No, Master."

"Who do you choose?"

"I choose you, Master." Derek says. "I only want you."

"Very good." Mikael leans in and kisses Derek's brow. "Thank you for telling me."

Just this small exchange helps to ground Derek, helps him to feel better about the entire thing. They arrive at a hotel and check in. Here, Derek is stared at quite a bit. He refuses to back down from the stares and second and third glances. Derek thinks about being a lion, fierce and unashamed, wild and dangerous to anyone but his Master. It amuses him. He likes the way it makes the world feel like a safer place.

Of course they have the penthouse. Derek's Master would have no less. The place is massive with a beautiful view of London below. They don't stay for long except to drop off their bags.

They leave for a dinner party with an old friend of Mikael's. Nothing out of the ordinary happens there. The man is a Master and has a pet of his own. Derek is silent, kneeling and letting his Master feed him as he may while he catches up with an old friend. That man congratulates Mikael on having a personal of his own. Then they leave.

It's so uneventful that Derek is left worried about the ease of the visit. Nothing is that easy for him anymore. It hasn't been this easy in a long time.

Back at the hotel room, Mikael is carefully removing Derek's clothes for him, loosening all the gold laces and chains and snaps that have kept all the black leather skin tight to his body for the duration of the day. Derek finds that he's glad to be out of those clothes. His skin feels right again. His Master changes into a pair of sweat pants.

Back in the communal area Nick and Zane are in casual attire as well. Mikael sits and takes another conference call. In the middle of the call his Master slips his pants down and spreads his legs. 

Derek answers the open invitation with his mouth. He loves Mikael's taste. 

His Master lights a cigarette. The smell of cloves fills their space. Derek loves that smell.

Mikael's voice is the only thing he hears. He loves Mikael's voice.

Maybe he loves Mikael.

One of Mikael's hands rests at the back of Derek's head and Derek hears the snap of his Master's fingers. He starts to try to pull back but Mikael's hand keeps him there licking and sucking his cock. Derek feels movement behind him, hears the shuffling of clothes. Nick is at Derek's side. Zane is behind him. The plug is being pulled out of him, pushed back in. Again. And again.

Until it's gone.

Zane is filling him up now, pumping into him, slow and sure.

Derek's eyes are wide, looking up at his Master while keeping his cock in his mouth. Mikael is grinning at him. His Master wants this. This is for his Master's pleasure.

Nick's hand reaches for Derek's cock, stroking, fondling. Derek hears a muffled hum and sloppy, wet kisses behind him. Nick and Zane are kissing. A part of Derek wishes he could see it. Another part of him is just happy to be here on all fours, sucking his Master's cock.

It's hard to ignore Zane's cock in his has and Nick's hand fondling him. The entire situation is surreal. It reminds him of the harem, when the Mistress's pets would have an orgy together in the dark of night. Only this time Derek's mind is more present. He knows whose hands are on him and where. He knows these people. They care about him. They keep him safe. Derek is safe.

He hums around his Master's cock, pushes back on Zane's length, his body rocking to push his own cock into Nick's hand. This isn't taking control, is it? It's showing them that he likes what they're doing to him. His entire body wants, is so close. He has to keep from coming.

A tug of his Master's hands in his braids pulls his head up and off Mikael's cock. He looks up to his Master. "Suck on Nick. When they cum, you can cum."

Derek doesn't hesitate this time. His Master has told him that this is what he wants. Derek will do it. He shifts to where Nick is on his knees in front of Derek. Derek takes Nick's hard length in his mouth. Zane is fucking into him from behind. His Master is watching, rubbing his own cock while he speaks to whoever is on the other end of the phone call.

When both Nick and Zane spill from using Derek's holes, Derek cums too. He looks over to Mikael. Mikael smiles at him. His Master is pleased. It's a beautiful thing.

 

* * *

It's his fault, really. When Derek had been here, Hotch had been so intent on catching Carl Buford, on bringing down the Gallery, on making things comfortable for Derek, that he had neglected to really _look_ at Derek, to really _hear_ him. He was so intent on making sure that no one ever did to Derek what had been done to him again, that he neglected to see how deeply Derek had been affected by what had happened to him.

Marissa, the only person to ever be captured by the FBI after being in the Gallery, can't seem to come back from the past. Why should he have expected Derek to be able to come back?

It was poor judgement on his part, to think that Derek could integrate back into the life he once had after the horrors he'd been through. Aaron Hotchner has been beating himself up since the moment he learned that Derek had run.

Of course he had run. Of course he knew how to slip away from two highly trained Agents keeping an eye on him for his own safety. Of course he knew how to say all the right things to make people think he was doing better. That should have been Hotch there with him, keeping an eye on him, seeing the mess underneath the exterior so he could help.

Imagine his surprise, in the subsequent days after Derek's fleeing, to learn that the FBI has someone on the inside of the Art Gallery. Imagine his distress when that someone goes radio silent on them for months.

Imagine his relief when he gets a phone call from one Emily Prentiss with Interpol.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the episode 8x18 - Restoration
> 
> What if Carl Buford didn't die? What if he lived and escaped from prison? This is going to be an AU where this happens. It's going to take Derek many places and get very dark and twisted. If you are triggered by non-consensual rape elements, this isn't the fic for you.
> 
> This is Part 2 of the A Lion Tamed Series. Please read Part 1 first.

The next day isn't quite so uneventful as the first. Mikael's business in London is to collect two of the trained pets that had been sold years ago. Derek's heart hurts when he learns that their Master had passed away. He knows how that feels, as if you're in the middle of the ocean with no paddle, adrift, about to drown at any given moment.

Mikael tells him that pets don't always survive without their Masters. Derek can believe that. He only survived because of the possibility of being with Antoine again. He only survived because the pets in the Mistress's harem held him together. He only survived because Mikael started putting him back together. Derek knows that his Master is going to do what he can for the two they're collecting today.

There's an old brownstone that the limousine pulls up to. Derek gets out and heels behind his Master. Zane and Nick are with them, looking up and down the street as Mikael knocks on he door.

A man answers, claiming to be the brother of the woman who once lived in this house. Mikael greets him with a smile and a handshake along with his condolences. Mikael and Derek are ushered inside. The man looks Derek over curiously before taking them to a sitting room where two men are knelt on the floor, heads bowed. They each have a small bag next to them, collars around their necks and are dressed in sweat pants and tee-shirts.

Mikael goes over to them and leans down. "Eyes."

Both men look up to Mikael.

"Do you remember me?"

"Yes, Sir." They say in unison.

Mikael smiles softly. "I'm sorry for your loss. I'm sorry you're both hurting. I'm going to take you home for awhile. Understood?"

"Yes, Sir." Again, it's said in unison. One of the men starts crying. The other man resolutely tries not to cry.

"You may hold him." Mikael tells the resolute pet. The man looks relieved and circles both arms around the other pet, pulling him close. He whispers something in his ear.

"This is my personal, Derek." Mikael gestures back to Derek as he stands upright again. "He lost a Master once as well. He's okay now. The both of you will be okay."

Both men look at Derek. Derek looks back, offering them as sympathetic a look as he can. It isn't all that difficult since it's something he truly feels. They look away first, both men focusing on the floor beneath them.

"Now. Get your bags. Up." Mikael says.

Both pets get their bags and stand up.

"Heel behind Derek."

They process together out to where Nick and Zane wait for them. They file into the limousine. Derek isn't the only one kneeling on the floor of the limo now. Now there are three of them.

It's the same in the plane once they get on the tarmac. The two pets keep casting glances at him there. Derek kneels perfectly by his Master, hands clasped behind his back, knees spread wide, chin high. He feels useful. Because of what Mikael has said to them, Derek is a reminder to them that they'll eventually be okay too.

 

* * *

 

The building Mikael inhabits is tall, surrounded by other businesses, right in the middle of a sprawling city. The nightclub on the first floor is always busy. Mikael uses a private back entrance that leads into the rest of the building. Just inside, he promises Derek that their next excursion will be more fun than this one was and that he'll be up soon to undress him.

Derek finds himself strangely excited about the prospect of going out with Mikael again.

Mikael instructs Zane to take Derek up to their rooms while Nick stays with him as he gets the two pets settled into the floors below.

Derek heels behind Zane to the elevator and inside of it.

"I gotta say, I like getting out of here, but it's always good to come home again." Zane says. "You happy to be home, Derek?"

"Yes, Sir. I like it here." He really can't wait to be out of his clothes, to be honest.

"Me too." Zane tosses a grin back at him. "I've known Mikael for forever. We grew up together. You make him happier than I've ever seen him. It's good."

Derek smiles. He can't help himself. "He makes me happy too, Sir." After a moment, he has to ask. "Will those pets really be okay?"

Zane shrugs and the elevator doors open, they step out on their fifteenth floor. "He'll probably try to keep them together when and if they're sold again. Mikael will do whatever he can. The rest is up to them, just like it was up to you, you know?"

"Yes, Sir." Even for Derek Mikael could only do so much. Derek has still had to work hard to be okay. He still has work to do. Another person can only do so much.

They enter their living space and an unfamiliar female voice sounds.

"Well it's about time..."

A woman, tall and curvy with blonde hair pulled back into a tight bun is sitting in Mikael's chair by the fireplace. She's wearing a blush colored wrap dress and tan pumps.

"Zane. Where's Mikael?"

"I can see we're gonna have to have a chat with security around here." Zane says dryly. "Go kneel on your pallet, Derek."

Derek moves to his pallet, kneeling as he's told, hands clasped behind his back. He watches the woman, this intruder to their private space. He instinctively doesn't like her here.

She looks at him in disgust. "Is this the latest pet?"

"This is Derek, Mikael's personal." Zane says, moving across the room by Derek and standing close to him. Derek likes having Zane close right now.

"So he finally did it... I knew he would eventually."

"You knew who Mikael was a long, long time ago."

Her nose wrinkles, completely ignoring that comment. "It's looking at me. Shouldn't it be looking at the floor?"

Derek's eyes narrow, chin lifting and head tilting. He doesn't much care for being called an 'it'.

The woman stands and takes a step back, not much caring for how dangerous Mikael's personal suddenly looks.

Zane laughs, amused by her reaction, and pets a hand over Derek's head. Zane might as well have just said 'good lion' in the same way a dog owner says 'good dog'.

"Mikael's down beneath the nightclub, Katherine. Go find him. You shouldn't be in here without his permission."

"Security didn't agree."

"Security's in trouble."

Derek watches this entire exchange.

"I'll go find Mikael." The woman that Zane had called Katherine looks at Derek once more, rolls her eyes and then stalks from the room.

"Well..." Zane says once she's gone, getting out his phone and presumably texting Mikael. "You just met Mikael's ex-wife."

Derek feels his heart clench in his chest and his stomach twist into knots.

_Fuck._

That other voice in his head pipes up for the first time in several days. _Yeah, fuck._

 

* * *

Needless to say that Mikael isn't back up in their rooms momentarily. Derek kneels on his pallet for a long time and it's past dinnertime when Mikael and Nick return to the room. Nick looks worriedly to Derek. Mikael stands for a moment, thinking, looking as if he's enjoying the blessed silence.

Derek says nothing. Lets his Master have his silence.

It's eventually Zane who breaks the moment. "So? Katherine's here."

"Yes she is." Mikael looks over to Derek, then to Zane. "How was she with him?"

"Well, bitch is her default. She was unimpressed with him. He was equally unimpressed with her. Then she was scared of him." Zane grins.

Nick grins.

Mikael grins.

Seeing Mikael's reaction makes Derek grin.

"He did good." Zane finishes.

"Of course he did." Mikael moves over to Derek, sits in his chair and beckons Derek closer with a wave of his fingers.

Derek shuffles closer on his knees. Mikael leans in and slides his fingertips over Derek's features. "She was rude to you. I'm sorry, Derek."

"It's okay, Master."

"No, it's not." Mikael sits back, crosses one leg over the other and lights the pipe resting on the table by his chair. "In the vein of full disclosure, to all three of you, I'm allowing her to stay here for a few weeks while she gets back on her feet. She won't be up here again. She isn't allowed up here. She has her own rooms."

Derek and Nick stare at Mikael as if he's just spoken a foreign language that neither of them understand.

Zane dramatically rolls his eyes to the ceiling.

A million arguments pipe up in Derek's mind. He can't speak any of them. Maybe Mikael has given him a voice, but Katherine is his ex-wife. Where Derek kneels, that changes things.

"I wanna say a hundred things that I'm not saying right now, boss." Zane says.

"I know." Mikael looks to Zane. "Thank you for your discretion."

Derek is left wondering about those hundred things that Zane hasn't said. He gets one thing out of this exchange. Katherine, his Master's ex-wife, is trouble.

 

* * *

 

His Master is different with his ex-wife nearby, more withdrawn, his mind split instead of focused as he usually is. Derek withdraws too, telling himself that it's temporary. Of course having his ex-wife here would shake Mikael up a bit. His Master had told him it wasn't a pretty divorce. Derek can't blame him. Eventually, Katherine will be gone and all will be back to normal.

Mikael never misses his mornings with Derek. He never misses dinner. During those times he's distracted though, going through the motions. In the in-between of those two things, Mikael is gone. Derek is left with either Nick or Zane.

Both Nick and Zane assure him that things will be okay. Derek believes that eventually things will be okay again.

He and Mikael still go to the Master's lunches once a week.

The fourth week Mikael gets a text and leaves in the middle of lunch. Derek is with Master Alexei for the rest of the lunch, kneeling next to Kit. Master Alexei wants to watch Kit suck Derek. Derek lies back and lets Kit take him into her mouth.

Derek isn't really present for it though. His mind is with Mikael. Mikael, who isn't here to let him know if this is what pleases him. It feels wrong.

When lunch is over, he's following Zane back to their rooms at the top floor. Derek catches a glimpse into one of the rooms. There are always things going on in those side rooms off of the main room on the first floor of the basement. That's nothing new. This time it catches his attention because he smells cologne. Mikael's cologne. Nick is standing outside the door.

In the room, Katherine is on a bed, legs spread. Mikael is pounding into her.

Nick mouths the words 'you're okay' to Derek.

The floor has fallen out from beneath Derek. Zane is across the room. Derek hasn't even realized he stopped heeling to stare at the scene.

Nick tilts his head, telling Derek he should keep moving.

Derek can't look away.

Zane's hand is on his arm and finally Derek's world snaps back into the present and he starts moving again. Not before Zane looks into the room and scowls.

In the elevator, Zane speaks. "She'll be gone soon. Derek, it'll be okay. She'll be gone soon. Like... within the next few days from what I hear."

Good. Derek wants her gone. It's been a long time since Derek has felt the hot sting of betrayal and jealousy. Both feel strange in his mind when in reference to Mikael.

"Do you think that was the only time, Sir?" Derek asks.

Zane looks like he wants to answer in one way, then chooses the right path. "That's not your concern. Your concern is pleasing Mikael. Just hang in there, okay? Things will get back to normal soon."

 

* * *

 

That night at dinner, Derek says nothing about what he'd seen. He eats his dinner, reaching for each bite that Mikael offers him. He thinks he sees guilt in Mikael's eyes when he looks at him. Or maybe he's just projecting what he wants to see.

"I'm sorry I had to leave at lunch." Mikael says as Derek moves to his pallet at the foot of the bed.

"It's okay, Master."

"I absolutely adore you, you know."

"Thank you, Master."

Mikael stands there for a few moments, looking down to Derek, looking as if he wants to say more. Maybe he wants to ask why Derek is giving him short, canned answers and none of his personality. In the end he decides against it. Then Mikael turns out the lights and goes to sleep.

Derek doesn't sleep much that night. Mikael doesn't speak or call to Derek when he wakes up in the middle of the night for his smoke.

Derek replays Mikael's words in his mind.

_I absolutely adore you, you know._


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the episode 8x18 - Restoration
> 
> What if Carl Buford didn't die? What if he lived and escaped from prison? This is going to be an AU where this happens. It's going to take Derek many places and get very dark and twisted. If you are triggered by non-consensual rape elements, this isn't the fic for you.
> 
> This is Part 2 of the A Lion Tamed Series. Please read Part 1 first.

Mikael is missing again after their morning routine. Derek is left with both Nick and Zane. Katherine has flipped everything upside-down. Usually Mikael wouldn't be without one of his guards. Now he's gone off by himself. Derek's Master likes order and control. Katherine is doing something to take both of those things away.

Derek hasn't seen her again. It's been weeks and Mikael has been very careful to keep the two of them separate. Derek is trying very hard not to say anything, not to complain. It isn't his place to complain about something like this, is it? He's torn. In spite of Mikael's absence, he still has his routine, after all. Mikael is going through something. Zane keeps saying it'll be over soon.

It'll be over soon. Things will get back to normal.

Nick and Zane are playing a game of chess nearby. Derek is blankly staring at the board, watching as his two guars contemplate moves and shift pieces across the board. It reminds him of watching Reid and Giddeon play so many times while music from his headphones blasted in his ears to tune everything else out after a hard case.

There's no music now. He misses music. Maybe he can ask Mikael for music once things get back to normal, once his Master doesn't have so much on his plate. Mikael has given him so much, surely music is a small thing to ask for.

Deep down, Derek feels like he's in-between worlds. His heart and soul that Mikael has worked so hard to put back together feel unsteady, like they might shatter again. His mind is slipping back into that nothing place. When Mikael speaks to him now, Derek gives him canned responses. Mikael isn't pleased with that, but it's what Derek has to give him until things right themselves again.

_I absolutely adore you, you know._

Derek plays those words in his mind over and over. Mikael's words. His Master's words. Mikael adores him. Derek thinks he loves Mikael. With Katherine here, even the possibility of love is a scary thing. With Katherine here, Derek doesn't want to love Mikael.

_I absolutely adore you, you know._

But Mikael had sex with Katherine. Possibly more than once. He might even be having sex with her right now. Confusion is Derek.

"Hey."

Derek vaguely understands that Zane has been speaking to him. He has no idea what Zane said. It's the hand on top of his head that gets his attention. He looks up to find Nick and Zane standing next to him.

"I'm sorry, Sir." Whatever it is, whatever he did, even if it's just not listening when spoken to, he's sorry.

Nick shakes his head. "It's okay. Stand up."

Derek stands.

"Your Master wants you downstairs." Zane grins at him when Derek looks around the room as if he'll find Mikael here, as if he might have missed him entering the room. "He texted us, Derek. I think he wants to play with you."

"Play with me, Sir?"

"There are rooms downstairs that have equipment in them. He's taken pets there before, in the past, before you. So... he wants us to set you up in one." Zane smiles. "What do you think of that? You wanna please your Master? Ready for some fun?"

He and Mikael haven't had sex in days. Derek's body screams yes, please. Derek's mind is in a continuous state of emotional whiplash.

"Heel." Nick says.

Derek heels behind Nick, Zane walking behind Derek. They go to the elevator and head down, down, down... Derek's body feels alive with anticipation for the first time in weeks. His Master wants him again. Maybe Katherine is gone. Maybe things will get back to normal.

_I absolutely adore you, you know._

Derek dips his head and feels his lips start to grin. Mikael wants him again.

He's led to a side room off of the main basement floor. The room has a bed in it. The walls hold all kinds of strange equipment. There's cabinets and chests that probably house even more. Derek isn't led to the bed. After checking his phone again, Derek is told to stand in a certain place in the room. Nick clasps cuffs around his wrists that hang from a chain in the ceiling. His wrists are chained above his head.

"You look excited." Zane says with a grin.

"Do you think he loves me?" Derek asks the question before he can stop himself. He's looking at Zane, the man who has known Mikael for forever.

Zane nods. "Yeah, I do."

"Do you love him?" Nick asks.

Derek considers that for a long moment before settling on, "Maybe." Love still scares him right now. Maybe as things get back to normal. "I'll please him and then things will be okay."

"Hey." Zane is right beside him. "Whatever happens, things are gonna be okay."

Both men leave he room and Derek is left there on his own for a long while. Finally, the door opens and shuts behind him with that same sound-proof sound that all the doors have here.

"Master." Derek whispers.

"Whore." The voice says.

Wait. No. Wait. Carl Buford in this space, in Mikael's space, does not compute for a moment. Derek just can't put the two things together right away. He has to be hearing things. 

Derek feels a hand at his back, sliding around to the front. The man walks around him. And there, standing in front of him, is the man from his nightmares.

_Whore. Whore. Whore. Look to the sky. Whore._

"What are you doing here?" Derek looks up to the chains, tries to pull his wrists from the cuffs. Metal clinks against metal. Metal scrapes against his skin at his wrists. Nothing comes loose. "Carl? What are you doing here?"

"You were mine, Derek. I had you and you were mine. That asshole Martin... I knew something was up with him. He took what was mine." Carl's gaze slides over Derek. His hands touch all of the piercings. "Oh, look at you. All grown up and fixed up. If I could take you outta here, I would."

"Where's Mikael?" Derek asks. "Did you hurt him? Carl did you do something to him?" All he can see is Mikael with half of his face blown off like what Carl had done to Sarah.

_No. Don't think of Sarah. Don't go there._

Carl's fist slams against Derek's face, hard, so hard that Derek tastes blood in his mouth. "Even now. Even now you can't bow down to me? After everything that's happened to you, you still can't give me what I want?"

Derek is still having trouble with the fact that Carl is here. How did he get in here? Nick and Zane put him in here and left him... and let Carl in? No no no no.... no.

"I want respect. I want submission. I want you to be mine." Carl walks around the room, shaking his head, looking at the items on the wall. "But you can't be mine, can you?"

Derek belongs to Mikael. Derek chose Mikael. No, he can't be Carl's or anyone else's.

_I absolutely adore you, you know._

"You were defiant when you were a kid too. Think that's what made you one of my favorite. You'd always fight it, but then you'd submit in the end." Carl says.

Derek doesn't want to think about when he was a kid. He wants Mikael and Nick and Zane. He wants to rewind time to before Katherine was here.

Carl picks up a long leather whip. Derek's breath catches in his throat. Carl picks up a wooden paddle. Derek breathes again.

_Choose the paddle. Choose the paddle._

The paddle would do less damage, he thinks. Derek can handle a spanking.

The whip is laid on the bed and Carl comes closer to him, wooden paddle in hand. "You're one tough son of a bitch, Derek. We'll see how tough you are when I end you." Carl is right in front of Derek now. "If I can't have you, no one can. You got that? You hear me, Derek? If I can't have you, no one can."

The paddle doesn't hit his ass as Derek would have expected. It slams hard against the side of his face, making his world spin. And again, a second time on top of his head, a third time against his face again. His head spins. "Carl." When Derek tries to hide his face against his bicep, the wood hits his side, his ribs, his stomach, his cock, again and again, over and over. It doesn't stop for a long time.

Derek can't breathe without intense pain. Something is broken and wrong on the inside.

There's a pause, a silence and stillness that Derek wants to burrow himself into. Derek thinks of silken sheets and cloves, a cocky grin and cologne. What did Carl do to Mikael? How did he get in here?

Just when he starts to nestle into that silence, the first crack of the whip lands against his back. His entire body jerks on chains and he cries out. Another crack lands that hurts so damn bad.

Derek struggles again with renewed vigor. His ribs hurt so bad. It hurts to breathe. But he's pulling at the chains, trying to slip his hands through the cuffs, flailing and trying to get away from slice after slice. Blood is flowing into his eyes, into his mouth. Still, the whip lands against back, ass, thighs. It curls around his sides to his front. It stings. It breaks skin. It draws blood. It aches. 

Derek hurts everywhere. It hurts so damn bad. It keeps coming at him and it hurts. Derek has quit fighting it. There's just a slight jerk of his body every time the whip lashes his skin. He's in and out of consciousness and still, there's no relief. He keeps thinking that when he wakes again, it'll be over, but it isn't, not for a long time.

He thinks he blacked out for a bit because Carl is fucking him. The plug that had been inside of him is on the floor. Derek's body is shaking, muscles wanting to fight but unable to go anywhere, at war with himself because of everything he's been through.

A part of him says he should remain docile and let it happen.

Another part of him is dangerous to everyone but Mikael.

Carl fucks him hard and Derek is in so much pain that he almost blacks out again. Maybe he does black out because the next moment Carl is in front of him with a knife. He holds the knife blade flat. Blood drips from Derek's chin and nose onto the blade.

"That's right. Wake up and be with me." Carl says. "Call yourself a whore, Derek."

"I'm a whore." Derek whispers. He just wants it to end. He wants it over. He's one big ball of pain and he wants it over. "I'm a whore."

"Oh man, if only I could take you outta here. I want the man you are right now. Say it again."

"I'm a whore." The words are soft and quiet in the room, but loud in Derek's mind.

Carl has a hand at Derek's chin, lifting his head. The blade slides down one side of Derek's face, sharp and cruel. Derek whimpers. "You'll die an ugly whore. Such a fucking waste. You could've been my whore. Now you're no one's anything. Just another ugly whore in a sea of ugly whores."

The blade cuts across his face again. Derek cries. He can't help himself. He's crying and he isn't sure when he started crying. His mind feels foggy, like he's half-dreaming. But no, this is very real. How is this real?

_I absolutely adore you, you know._ Mikael's words. Derek wraps himself in them. Even when Mikael's world had been tilted sideways, he adored Derek.

"And if I can't have you, no one can." Carl walks around to his back, parts Derek's ass cheeks and then shoves the knife up inside of him.

The last thing Derek hears are his own screams.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the episode 8x18 - Restoration
> 
> What if Carl Buford didn't die? What if he lived and escaped from prison? This is going to be an AU where this happens. It's going to take Derek many places and get very dark and twisted. If you are triggered by non-consensual rape elements, this isn't the fic for you.
> 
> This is Part 2 of the A Lion Tamed Series. Please read Part 1 first.

Derek's mind is a sitcom. His Master gets home and he's kneeling on the floor waiting for him. He takes his Master's coat and hangs it up for him. He has coffee waiting for his Master and serves it to him while he speaks with Nick and Zane. They all eat dinner together. Mikael hand-feeds Derek. Derek is happy here. This is his family and he's happy.

> Derek tastes blood. He can't breathe.

In the bedroom, the bed is big enough for four. All four of them pile in together. Derek always gets the middle somewhere. He's always warm on all sides. His body gets the sex it needs. His heart, mind and soul are full of love. This is his family and he's happy.

> Everything hurts. There's nothing but pain.

They do everything together. Derek goes out with his Master. People stare but Derek can't bring himself to really care all that much. His Master, Nick and Zane, they all think he's beautiful and that's the only thing that really matters. They visit his mom and his sisters. Everyone gets along. His mom is happy because Derek is happy. This is his family and he's happy.

> Ugly whore.

They're invited to a dinner party, all four of them. Mikael dresses Derek in his traveling attire and calls Derek beautiful. The four of them go to Rossi's house. It smells of wine and Italian food. Hotch, Reid, J.J. and Penelope are there too. None of them look at him strangely. They stand around in the kitchen. Mikael gives Derek a sip of his wine, holding the glass to his lips. This is his family and he's happy.

> Something is shoved into his throat. He's not a biter.

Mikael invites the Mistress's harem over. Derek gets to see Jai and Lily and Dare, and even Bran. His Master has them perform for his pleasure. Derek is touched and fucked in every way possible. His body moves seductively for his Master's pleasure, for his friends who are just like him. This is his family and he's happy.

> "It's going to take awhile, Mikael. Most of his blood was on the floor."
> 
> "If we need to take him to an actual hospital, Javid, then I'm prepared to do that."
> 
> "And risk losing him to the feds? No, I can take care of him."
> 
> There's a heavy sigh here. "Will he live?" Mikael's voice sounds small and weak.
> 
> "Do you want me to lie to you?"
> 
> The answer comes only after a few moments of consideration. "Yes."
> 
> "Absolutely, Mikael. He'll live. No question about it."

* * *

 

Derek's mind is a horror film. He's in a box. He can't move. It's close quarters and dark. Derek tries to lift his arms and legs and he can't. He can't move. He hears his heartbeat trip-hammering fast in his chest. His breath is quick and unsteady. The box is jostled from one place to the next. He can't move. This is his nightmare.

> "I'm sorry." Nick says. Someone is holding his hand. Is it Nick? "I should have known it wasn't right. Somehow. I should've known."
> 
> Nick is still sitting there much later. "I care, okay? You're strong, Derek. You've gotten through so much and you're strong. Just wake up. I care. I love you."

Everything is pain.

The collar chained to the floor holds him down onto his knees. He can't stand up. He can't close his mouth either. Cock is in his mouth. Something thick and wooden is in his ass. Derek hurts. He hurts. He hurts. He has to remind himself to breathe through his nose. He's a hole and he hurts. This is his nightmare.

> "So when you wake up, I'm pretty sure you can ask for anything and I'll try to get it for you." Zane is gently touching at something that feels strange on Derek's face. It's numb but not. It feels weird.
> 
> "Chocolate cake? Yep. Extra workouts? You got it. How about some pizza? We can cut up some pizza into tiny pieces your Master can feed you. Yeah, I bet you'd like pizza."
> 
> Later, Zane continues. "You just gotta open those pretty eyes of yours. Mikael, all of us, we'd really appreciate it if you would wake up. We miss you."

Everything is pain.

Derek is lying on his back, looking up. It's a beautiful day at the lake. The tree tops sway slightly with the gentle breeze. Birds sing. Occasionally he can hear the 'pop' of a trout rising to the surface of the water before diving back under the water. Carl Buford's hands touch him in all the places he knows they shouldn't and Derek, drunk on wine, doesn't fight it. Derek looks to the sky. This is his nightmare.

> "I don't know what to say. I messed up, my darling lion." Mikael is holding his hand, fingers tracing circles over the skin. "I should have known... but I'm afraid I've always been short-sighted where Katherine is concerned. No more."
> 
> Derek's hand is lifted, Mikael's lips press against his knuckles and remain there as he speaks, warm breath on Derek's skin. "I owe you so many apologies. I need you to wake up first. Wake up, Derek. That's an order."
> 
> And then later. "I absolutely adore you, you know."

Everything is pain.

Derek is standing in the middle of a room at Quantico. His friends, people he calls family, they stand around him looking at him like he's a strange thing. Maybe he is a strange thing, a circle trying to be a square. Of course profilers would see past his games. A circle can never be a square. Derek asks if he can please them because it's the only thing he knows how to say anymore. They look disgusted at the prospect. This is his nightmare.

> "They can't find him, boss."
> 
> "How the hell did Katherine get him in and out of here, Zane? I want answers. I want to put a bullet into the goddamn heads of anyone who had anything to do with it."
> 
> "You think I don't want that too? You're the one who let her stay here. You're the one who gave her access to you, and to your phone." Zane sounds angrier than Derek has ever heard him. "She sent us that text from your phone, Mikael. You never want anyone to question you, so we didn't. We followed your orders to the letter."
> 
> "Then Nick was drugged while you came to look for me." Mikael says. "Katherine did all of this..."
> 
> "I bet he's paying her. Her whole bankrupt story was true. We've looked into it. She needs money. This Buford guy has to be paying her." Zane adds. "The point is that she played you. You still gave a shit about her and she's a bitch and she played all your weaknesses against you. And now look. Look at him. He's our responsibility. And look at him. You know this is the same guy he told you about from when he was a kid."
> 
> "I know." Mikael is close now. Derek feels a hand on his own. "I know."
> 
> "Look, we're all upset. We just need... him to wake up. Security is tighter than it's ever been. I'm redoing extra background checks just to make sure. If there's anyone who isn't loyal to you and the other Masters, we'll weed them out."

Everything is pain.

Derek is kneeling in a pool of his own blood. Carl is fucking him. Katherine sits in a chair with her legs spread. Mikael is pounding into her. Derek is sitting there watching, being fucked by the wrong man. The man behind him whispers the words 'ugly whore' into his ear. Mikael steps aside. Derek is made to crawl forward and lick the pussy where his Master's cock just was. Katherine calls 'it' an ugly whore. This is his nightmare.

> "When I let my brother have you, that was probably the most altruistic thing I've ever done. Oh how I coveted you. Antoine would send me pictures of you and I just..." Mikael goes silent for awhile. His fingers are tracing up and down Derek's arm.
> 
> "I wanted you even before I knew I would ever have you. And what a solace you have been to my heart since Antoine passed away. It's like I have a piece of him still. He touched you. He loved you. I love you too."
> 
> Lips press to Derek's bicep. "I messed up. Katherine... I should never have... I knew that she was using me for something. I thought it was for my money. It turns out that she was using me for someone else's money." His Master pauses. "I hate that she and that man were in my house. I hate that I put them in that position. I hate that I put you in that position."
> 
> A hand smoothes over Derek's head. "I'm so sorry. I can't make it better if you don't wake up. Please, wake up Derek. Wake up. Open your eyes for me."

Derek tries to open his eyes. It's harder than it should be. They feel heavy, weighted down, all of him feels heavy, too much to move, too much to lift, too much to deal with. Everything hurts. Everything is heavy. Derek thinks he must be as broken physically as he feels on the inside.

"Javid! He moved his hand. His hand just moved."

"Step back."

Derek tries to move his hand again, even though he hadn't realized he'd accomplished it the first time. He tries to open his eyes. A flash of light shines into them and he slams them closed again.

"Derek, open your eyes." Mikael says.

Next is Nick. "Is he waking up?"

"Oh fuck. Please let him wake up." Zane adds.

Doctor Javid is there, coaxing Derek's eyes open. They start to open finally. Mikael, Nick and Zane are at the foot of the bed. Zane is biting his nails. Derek chokes on something, reaches up to grab the tube and yanks it out. Derek coughs. He feels blood trickle from the corner of his mouth. Everything hurts.

Derek is crying again. He was crying when he was last awake too. Maybe he's always been crying.

"It's okay. I'm going to give you something for the pain." Doctor Javid slips a needle into Derek's IV.

Derek looks up to the ceiling. There are bright lights there. It's a nothing kind of ceiling and Derek would rather stay there with nothing than be anywhere else. He wants to say it's a nightmare, the whole thing has been a nightmare. The pain is too real for him to completely go there though. Pain on the inside. Pain on the outside. Pain that isn't physical. Pain that is physical.

Everything is pain.

 

* * *

 

It turns out that Katherine had indeed used Mikael's phone to text Nick and Zane. She had then proceeded to get Carl into the building. Derek thinks Carl must be paying her too.

It turns out that Derek has three broken ribs from the wooden paddle, a fractured wrist from his own attempts at escaping the restraints and barely any skin left on his back from the whipping he'd received. There are two long cuts on Derek's face that have been stitched up. One goes vertically down the left side of his face from brow to cheek. The other is a diagonal from his right cheek to the corner of his lips. There's a smaller abrasion on his brow from the paddle as well. His anal canal has been sliced to shreds too in thanks to the knife Buford had shoved inside of him.

Derek is tired. Everything hurts.

It turns out that Mikael is human and makes mistakes like anyone else does. Whether or not Derek can forgive those mistakes remains to be seen. So far Derek hasn't said anything to him or to Nick or to Zane. Doctor Javid has insisted Derek get rest and care before he's made to do anything. They all agree.

It turns out that Carl Buford eludes even Mikael and his men. Katherine is in the wind as well. Derek wants to bury himself away from everyone and everything. He wants to hide. He wants to cry. He wants to pretend he doesn't feel anything anymore.

It turns out that Derek has come full circle, according to that voice in his head that never really goes away anymore.

_Whore._


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the episode 8x18 - Restoration
> 
> What if Carl Buford didn't die? What if he lived and escaped from prison? This is going to be an AU where this happens. It's going to take Derek many places and get very dark and twisted. If you are triggered by non-consensual rape elements, this isn't the fic for you.
> 
> This is Part 2 of the A Lion Tamed Series. Please read Part 1 first.

During the next few weeks Derek is rarely alone. Nick sits with him and doesn't say much. Sometimes he holds Derek's hand. Derek likes the silence. Zane, when he sits with Derek, will ramble about anything and everything. Derek likes listening to him. Mikael will sit and talk for a bit, then start to read aloud to him just as Antoine had once done. Mikael is working through the story of Wuthering Heights. Derek likes listening to his Master's voice.

Derek never says a word to any of them no matter how much they say to him. Instead, he stares at the nothing ceiling. It's safe in this in-between where there's nothing - but his people are still close by within reach. They never push him to talk. Derek is glad for that.

It's weeks later when Derek is finally up walking around without any help. Nick and Zane have come to get him one morning. Derek is full up on pain medication and the Doctor has sent extra with him. He still hurts, but it's bearable. They escort him to get groomed, everything but the buffing of his skin. Hours later his hair and nails have been freshly done in the way Mikael likes them.

Derek quietly heels behind Zane. Nick is behind Derek and carries a bag of medicine Doctor Javid has sent with him. In the elevator Nick rests a hand lightly on one of Derek's wrists at his back and Zane has a hand on his arm. The touch is comfortable.

Their room is familiar. Derek likes it here. The chair Mikael usually sits in has been changed out for something different. This one is gold plush with black cording around the trim. It matches Derek's pallets.

He automatically goes over to his pallet and is about to kneel when Mikael steps out of the bathroom. "Here, Derek."

Derek goes over to Mikael. 

Mikael puts him in the shower and disrobes before stepping in with him. His Master gently starts cleaning over his skin, careful to work around wounds that are still fairly bad. The wand is not used. No plug is put inside of him. Derek understands why. He's still healing there. It will take time. Derek lets Mikael trim his beard and brush his teeth. From Derek's perspective, all of this is very mechanical up to this point. It's all action, no heart.

When he looks at himself in the mirror that changes. His features crumble and he starts crying again. It's stupid, after everything he's been through, to start crying because he looks exactly as Carl had wanted him to look, like an ugly whore. His lip is still cracked and split. Bruises are healing. The stitches are dark against his skin, his healing skin red and angry. He'll have scars. He was supposed to die an ugly whore. He should have died.

"Shh, darling. It's okay." Mikael leans in to gently kiss at Derek's cheek over the stitches. "It's okay."

Derek flinches from the closeness to the healing cut rather than any pain. How will Mikael love him now? He's not beautiful anymore. Mikael deserves something beautiful. Maybe that's why he was with Katherine. Derek can't quit crying.

Mikael gets the cream out of the bag Doctor Javid had given them. He dabbles some on Derek's face over the wounds. Then gets to work on Derek's back where there's even more damage, more skin that will scar.

Derek's tears eventually dry up. He doesn't look at himself in the mirror again though. He can't. If he looks at his reflection things fall apart even more so than they already have. Thoughts creep in, insecurities that he's trying so hard to hold at bay.

In the closet, Derek kneels while Mikael dresses in sweat pants and a tee. Then Derek is told to stand and heel. Derek follows Mikael out to the main room where Nick and Zane are. Two more chairs have been set up beside Mikael's.

"Kneel, Derek."

Derek kneels on his pallet, knees spread, hands clasped behind his back. Unlike his usual though, his shoulders are hunched inward and he stares at the floor. His long braids at the front hang down over his face. Derek likes that they hide one of the cuts.

Mikael sits in his large armchair. Nick and Zane sit beside him. Mikael lights a clove. Derek breathes in the familiar scent. He likes the spiced aroma. It's comforting.

"Do you have a voice, Derek? Or is it lost inside of you somewhere?" Mikael asks. It's the first time anyone but Doctor Javid has asked him anything that absolutely requires a response.

That's the only reason that it takes him so long to answer. Derek doesn't want to talk. Mikael is still his Master and demands a response just for that reason alone. His Master and his two guards are patient with him until Derek can finally make the words be words. "I have a voice, Master."

"That's good. I'm glad." Mikael crosses one leg over the other, one elbow leaning on the arm of his chair. "We want to know if you have any questions about what happened."

The truth is that between things he's slowly remembering hearing while he'd been unconscious, Zane's incessant babbling, Mikael's occasional confessions and apologies between chapters of Wuthering Heights and his own deductive reasoning skills, Derek has figured it all out.

"No, Master. I understand." Derek might be a very different man that he once was. But Derek is not stupid. He can figure things out in spite of the ever-changing maze in his mind.

"Really?" Zane says, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. Zane inhales deeply, exhales quickly, like he can't get enough air in his lungs and he's barely able to breathe. "Cause from where I'm sitting it looks pretty fucked up."

Derek doesn't know what to say to that so he stays silent. It is fucked up. He's fucked up. He's broken and ugly and a whore.

"Use your words, Derek." Mikael says. "You're getting lost in your head again."

"I understand, Master." Derek reiterates. He knows what happened.

"What, exactly, do you understand, darling?" Mikael asks. "Spell it out for us."

"Katherine helped get Carl in so he could kill me, Master."

_If I can't have you, no one can._

That's what it boils down to, right? There are so many tattered threads and frayed edges that are wrought with emotions and traumas and nightmares that Derek could go into. But that's the bottom line. He hopes it's enough. He isn't ready to address the more difficult things just yet.

"Well, don't you know how to break it down to the most basic statement." Zane says with a smirk. "You're kind of weirding me out. Maybe you could talk a little more and, you know, look at us."

"Zane." Mikael says the name as only a slight warning.

"No, seriously. I have all this fucking guilt and I don't know what to do with it or if I actually did anything wrong." Zane puts a hand on Nick's knee. "And I know Nick's feeling the same cause we've talked about it. So, you know... we're sorry. We should have... I don't know, checked with Mikael instead of believing a fucking text message, especially when that bitch was around. I'm sorry, okay?"

"I'm sorry too." Nick says. "We're supposed to protect you."

Zane speaks for the both of them. "We hate that we strung you up for him, that we were the last thing you saw before that shitty thing happened. We're sorry."

Derek continues to stare at the floor.

"And I'm sorry that I gave her any leeway in this place. This is your home. You should feel safe here and I took that from you." Mikael says. "I'm sorry you were a casualty of her and... me. Together. Nick told me you saw us together, Katherine and me. I'm sorry."

"It's okay, Master, Sirs." Derek says.

"It's not okay, Derek." Mikael counters around an exhale of smoke. "We're going to try to make it okay though. None of us are giving up. Are you giving up on us, Derek?"

"No, Master."

"Do you want to give up on me?"

"No, Master."

"Who do you choose?"

"I choose you, Master."

_But does he choose us?_

_Shut up._

_I'm confused. Why was he with Katherine?_

_So am I. Just shut up. I can't deal with you right now._

"Good. That's good." Mikael's voice sounds as if he'd been unsure of that answer, relieved now that Derek has given it. "I want you to work on using your words as much as you can. I know things are difficult right now, but we'll work through them as long as it takes."

Mikael looks over to Nick and Zane. "Is there anything else that needs to be said?"

"Would you look at us?" Zane asks. "Just doesn't feel right with you looking down at the floor."

Slowly, Derek starts lifting his head. He looks up at Zane.

"Finally." Zane says, exhaling a breath he'd been holding. "So how do you feel about pizza?"

Nick shifts in his seat and Derek looks at Nick. "You're gonna be okay. We won't let anything like that happen again."

Mikael takes a drag from his cigarette and Derek looks over to him. His Master gives him a soft smile. "I absolutely adore you, you know."

"Do you love me, Master?" Derek asks.

There's a brief moment when Mikael seems surprised by the question. Derek is surprised by it too. It's the first thing he's said that hasn't been prompted. "I do. I do love you."

"Then..." Derek starts and then stops, his eyes falling back to the floor, braids hiding his face.

"Because I messed up. Because there's a history there with Katherine and myself. There will always be a history there because I once loved her." Mikael answers, somehow knowing what Derek is trying to ask. "She effectively destroyed any chance of using that history against me ever again. She'll pay, Derek. People who cross me always pay."

Mikael leans in and gently grips Derek's chin to bring his eyes back up. "I love you."

"Nick loves me too." Derek says, that memory just coming to him. Nick said he cared. Nick said he loved him. Derek's gaze flicks over to Nick and then back to Mikael.

"I know." Derek is thrown off by that response from his Master. Mikael knows that Nick loves him. "And Zane is right there with us. We've all had a long talk while you were unconscious."

Derek glances at Zane, who shakes his head and puts both hands up in surrender. "Hey, I was just asking about pizza." With Zane, pizza is code for love, Derek guesses. Zane shrugs. "There might've been a kumbaya moment that you should've been a part of."

Nick smirks and shakes his head.

A press of Mikael's fingers pulls Derek's attention back to him. "Who is your Master?"

"You are. You're my Master."

"Who owns you?"

"You own me, Master."

"Who do you choose?"

"I choose you, Master."

"And I choose you." Mikael's thumb slides over Derek's lips. Derek knows that Mikael doesn't like the canned answers that lack personality, but it's all that Derek has to give him right now. Thankfully, Mikael doesn't demand more.

Mikael puts the filter of his clove to Derek's lips and nods. Derek inhales the smoke, proverbially pulling a part of Mikael back inside of him. Take me inside of you, Mikael had once said while holding the clove to Derek's lips. Derek does it again. He chooses Mikael.

His Master's thumb slides over Derek's lips again as smoke is exhaled between them. It's as if Mikael wills more from Derek with just that touch, but Derek doesn't have more to give right now. "We'll work on getting your words back. We'll work on making things right again."

"Yes, Master."

 

* * *

The thing about the Art Gallery is that it isn't in just one place. It's a worldwide operation with locations all around the world. How do you bring something like that, something of that scope and magnitude, down?

Patience.

Move too soon, you take off a limb from the tree that can be easily regrown. Move too soon, you don't even get a limb. The trick is getting it from the roots up, a multi-pronged attack that will kill the whole tree.

Patience.

Hotch is so tired of being patient. The entire BAU team is tired of being patient. As far as they know, Derek is safe. Their person on the inside has assured them of that. As far as they know, it's better for Derek to be where he is right now, wherever that is. As far as they know, bringing down the Gallery is another step closer to getting Derek back, if there's still a Derek to have.

Patience.

Patience is a bitch.


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the episode 8x18 - Restoration
> 
> What if Carl Buford didn't die? What if he lived and escaped from prison? This is going to be an AU where this happens. It's going to take Derek many places and get very dark and twisted. If you are triggered by non-consensual rape elements, this isn't the fic for you.
> 
> This is Part 2 of the A Lion Tamed Series. Please read Part 1 first.

Derek doesn't speak much in those next few weeks while his wounds continue to heal. The stitches have come out, leaving angry lines across his face and criss-crossed all over his back, buttocks and thighs. Derek only knows this because of a glance in the bathroom mirror after the fact. He never lingers there for long.

Mikael, Zane and Nick all talk to him a lot. Derek only really responds to what needs to be responded to. He's almost smiled a few times with Zane if only because sometimes Zane is so ridiculous that it's hard not to be amused by him.

He sleeps on the floor on his pallet, wakes up in the middle of the night with Mikael, sleeps more. Every night Derek touches his collar. It's become a habit he doesn't think about, something that comforts him. The collar is a part of him, a part that's still beautiful.

He stares at the floor a lot. Derek has learned how to work his braids so that they shield his face from most things. His braids are a curtained veil that save anyone from having to look at him. They also make it seem like he's in his own space when he needs it.

One day he notices suit cases are out and being packed. Derek has been told nothing and asks nothing. Mikael is packing. So are Nick and Zane. Derek kneels in his own little space, head bowed, shielded by his hair, and waits.

Later that day Mikael calls Derek into the closet. Derek stands and goes to his Master. His travel clothes are laid out. Derek lets Mikael dress him, slipping into the leather and letting Mikael pull the thin golden ropes to tighten the leather to his body.

"We're going on a vacation together, the four of us." Mikael says as he dresses Derek. "No work to be done, just relaxation and a nice respite from the norm. What do you think of that?"

Being out in public isn't something Derek is excited about anymore. But his Master seems excited. "If it pleases you, Master."

"It pleases me." Mikael answers. "I got you a present, something I think you'll like quite a bit. But you don't get to know what it is until we get where we're going."

Derek doesn't need anything. He needs his pallet. He needs his people to be close by. He needs sex, eventually, some day. That's it. If he needs more he can't get to what it is or why he might need it right now. The building blocks inside of him have been upended and scattered onto the floor. There's only the foundation Mikael had built there now, barren and empty.

Mikael is his Master. He chooses Mikael. That's what he knows.

His Master finishes dressing him, then stands and cups either side of Derek's face. Derek wishes Mikael wouldn't touch his face. It's ugly. He's a whore. Mikael leans in and kisses him. Derek returns the kiss because it's what he's supposed to do. He also likes kissing Mikael, he remembers. The kiss turns a little sweeter, more personal. Then it's over.

"Go kneel on you pallet, darling. We'll get everything else ready."

Derek goes to kneel on his pallet. He bows his head and hides his face even as he licks his lips to taste the remnants of his Master's kiss.

 

* * *

 

The plane ride is a long one. Derek kneels next to Mikael on a pallet his Master has brought with them. He sleeps up on the couch, nestled into his Master's side. Then he kneels again on the floor. Mikael feeds him as he always does, bite sized pieces held up for Derek to reach up and get. Derek feels comfortable with this. It's familiar.

His insides are full of a nervous energy over being anywhere in public. In London there were a lot of people. He hopes they aren't going to London.

Derek's head is resting on Mikael's thigh. He has his face rested at just the right angle so that even though Mikael's hand occasionally brushes his braids back from his face, they still eventually fall back in place to cover his face up.

His ears start to pop, signaling their descent. Derek lifts his head to look out of the window as the plane tilts into a turn. He finds the brilliant blue of ocean water. That blue is the color of Mikael's eyes. Derek lays his head back down on his Master's thigh. He closes his eyes and waits.

"I can't wait to see the sun on your skin, my darling lion." His Master whispers, brushing Derek's braids back from his face again.

Derek keeps his eyes closed. He used to long for the sun. He isn't sure if he would like it anymore. The sun is too bright. People will see him. Derek doesn't want to be seen.

 

* * *

 

As they disembark the plane, Zane is on the phone with someone. There's a car waiting for them. The man who brought it for them is not driving them. He looks at Derek and Derek keeps his head down to keep the man from really seeing anything. 

Zane gets off the phone and drives while Nick sits up front in the passenger seat. Mikael takes the back with Derek. He has Derek sit up in the seat with him as there isn't much room in the floor. Through the window Derek can see bars and shops along the streets. There are palm trees everywhere, colorful flora everywhere, people everywhere.

People walk the streets in shorts and swimsuits and colorful shirts, sunglasses and floppy hats. There's a cruise ship docked in the distance that Derek can see just over the tops of the trees.

Derek lays his head against Mikael's shoulder and lets his mane of braids fall over his face. Mikael's arm wraps around Derek and Derek closes his eyes and waits.

 

* * *

 

When the car stops, Mikael squeezes Derek's shoulders. They get out of the car and there's a stone walk way up to a decent sized home. The structure has that upscale log cabin feel about it, but upgraded a bit. It's two stories and has large windows to see bits of the inside through.

"Heel, Derek."

Derek heels, hands behind his back, following his Master toward the house. There are no other structures within sight. The home is surrounded by overgrown plants and palm trees. While Nick and Zane get the bags, Mikael unlocks the door.

They step inside a space with wooden floors. A large kitchen is off to the side. A staircase off to the other that goes both up and down. Derek isn't really looking at anything but what's right in front of him. Through the braids covering his face he sees a living room, massive floor to ceiling windows and doors that show a spacious deck, a wooden walkway out to a beach, the ocean. He once told Mikael that he loved the beach.

"Come, darling." Mikael's fingers lace with Derek's, guiding him through the living room. His Master unlocks the doors that lead out to the deck. They step outside. It's humid and warm and calm and perfect.

Mikael leads him past a hot tub connected to an infinity pool. He leads him down the wooden walkway until there starts to be sand instead of wood. Derek looks down the beach. There are people further down, but not a single soul right here by this place. His Master is unlacing his boots, pulling one off, then the other. He sets them aside and takes Derek's hand again.

The sand is warm beneath his feet and between his toes as they step onto the beach. Derek is taking everything in; the lack of people, the warm sand, the cool breeze coming off the ocean, the sun on his skin, his Master paying more attention to him than anyone or anything else.

"This is your gift. I bought it for you. The beach is private. It's ours. The house is ours. We can come here as often as we like." Mikael says, bringing Derek's hand up to his lips. "It's yours, Derek."

Derek closes his eyes and waits. He waits for the bottom to fall out. He waits for the world to turn upside down again. That doesn't happen. After a few moments, he lifts his head, cants his head back so that the sun warms his face, his skin, his heart. His hair falls back away from his face. The sun brings him life. 

It's a ridiculously expensive, over-the-top and wonderful gift. It's something Derek would want. It's something that implies a future where the world isn't so upended. 

Derek smirks, almost grins. Almost

"Thank you, Master."

 

* * *

"Guess what's for dinner!" Zane sing-songs into the house a few hours later.

Their bags have been unpacked and Mikael has removed Derek's clothes. It feels good to be naked again. The doorbell rang. Zane ran to it. Now, as Derek looks up from where he kneels on the floor next to Mikael, he sees Zane carrying in three boxes of pizza. That was the phone call from earlier.

Derek almost smiles.

"I'm so glad you're determined to give us all bad cholesterol, Zane." Mikael says.

"Hey, Derek likes pizza. Right?" Zane nods at Derek, urging him to say something.

"I like pizza, Master." Derek says, glancing back to Mikael before watching a full grin grow on Zane's lips. There was a time when junk food was almost all that Derek ate. Emily and J.J. used to joke with him that that's why he needed to work out so much, because of all the burgers and burritos and pizza and sweets he ate.

Nick sits on a couch close by. "Believe it or not, I can cook."

"I have a chef coming tomorrow, but you're welcome to cook any night you wish, Nick."

"You really don't do anything halfway, do you?" Nick asks Mikael.

"Halfway is no fun. If you're gonna do something, do it all the way or not at all, maybe even more than all the way." Zane has set the pizzas on the coffee table. He gets some of the supplied plates from the kitchen along with knife and fork. He puts a piece of pizza on the plate and starts to cut it up into little pieces.

Derek presumes that one will be his. His Master will want to feed him.

"Will we get to be on the beach a lot, Master?" Derek asks. This is the second time he's spoken unprompted since he should have died. He doesn't want to rush anything, but Derek feels strange being inside when there's a beach right there.

Mikael smiles at him, reaches out to run his hand back over Derek's braids. "Yes, we'll be out there often, darling. As often as you like."

"You know what I don't get? A swimming pool when there's an ocean right there." Zane adds a full slice to the plate with the cut up pieces before passing it to Mikael. "Not that I won't be making use of the swimming pool, I'm just saying."

Derek has never really understood it either, but he doesn't say that. His Master feeds him bites of pizza with his fingertips and Derek's mouth waters for it. It's the first time he's had anything remotely unhealthy in a long time. It's delicious. His stomach might pay for it later but he doesn't care in the here and now.

It's later after dinner that Mikael takes Derek out to the beach again. Mikael has put on a pair of swim trunks. Derek is naked. They walk together through the sand to the edge of the ocean. The beach further down the way is clearing of people. A few still linger and Derek knows they're too far away to really get a good look at him.

He dips a toe in the water. It's lukewarm, neither cold nor overly hot. Derek steps into the water ankle deep with his hands clasped behind his back. He looks down, curls his toes and digs them into the wet sand. The sun is starting to go down. Derek hopes there are days when they can spend every minute out here.

He feels Mikael's hand slipping down his arm. Derek unclasps his hands and lets his Master hold one of them. Their fingers lace and they stand there in silence for awhile.

"Are you happy, Derek?" Mikael asks.

"Yes, Master." Derek nods, watching his toes curl and uncurl in the shallow water, his feet burying themselves further into the wet sand.

"Javid said you can start wearing the plug again. Would you like that?"

Derek looks up to the horizon, where it seems the water is so far away and drops off the Earth. He thinks he knows what it would feel like to drop off the Earth, multiple times over.

Would he like the plug? Yes. Should his Master have to put the plug back in him? No. Should his Master have to use him again? No. Should his Master have to pretend to want him? No.

"You don't have to..." Derek starts, then stops himself. What is he trying to say? He has no idea. The bridge is there but he can't cross it yet.

"I want to."

"If it would please you, Master."

"I would please me. But that isn't what I asked. Would you like to wear the plug?"

"Yes, Master."

Mikael leans over to kiss at Derek's slightly sun kissed shoulder. It will be even more sun kissed before their time here is done. "The sun is beautiful on your skin, Derek. You're beautiful."

It's the first time Mikael has called him beautiful since he should have died. Derek feels his heart leap up into his throat. His eyes become blurry with tears. A protest is on the tip of his tongue, but he swallows it back down. It's been a long time since Derek has been used for sex. When did he start defining himself by how much he's desired? By how much he can please others? By sex? He doesn't feel beautiful.

His Master is watching him intently. Derek knows he saw that reaction. Derek wants to make up for that reaction. He loves his Master.

"May I please you, Master?" Derek slips down to his knees in the shallow water and pulls his hand from Mikael's grasp. He leans in to nuzzle his face over Mikael's swim shorts at his groin. "Please, Master. Please." He whispers.

"What do you want, Derek?"

"I want to please you, Master. Let me please you." Derek says. "Please."

Mikael hasn't touched him in any sexual way since he almost died. Derek, in this moment, needs to be useful in the only way he knows, without a doubt, that he can be useful. He needs to show appreciation. He needs to connect with Mikael on some level beyond just talking. He needs to feel... something more.

Derek is a thing made for sex. He needs to have sex. His body needs it. His mind needs it. Maybe this, coupled with the plug, will open that door again.

_Ugly whore._

"What do you need, darling?"

"I need you, Master."

"Take what you need."

Derek's fingers curl in the waistband of Mikael's trunks and pull them down just past his groin. Then he clasps his hands behind his back and leans in to take his Master's cock into his mouth. He needs this. He needs to taste. He loves this taste. He loves the feel of Mikael's cock in his mouth maybe especially now.

This is his. Mikael is his. Right?

_Except..._

_Shut up._

Derek takes what he needs.


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the episode 8x18 - Restoration
> 
> What if Carl Buford didn't die? What if he lived and escaped from prison? This is going to be an AU where this happens. It's going to take Derek many places and get very dark and twisted. If you are triggered by non-consensual rape elements, this isn't the fic for you.
> 
> This is Part 2 of the A Lion Tamed Series. Please read Part 1 first.

The next morning Derek is lying in the bed with Mikael. His Master has let him sleep closest to the windows, screened to keep insects out but not closed off. The gauzy curtains sway in the morning breeze coming off the ocean. Derek can hear the waves and the tide, birds singing outside. There are the faint sounds of Nick and Zane talking in the living room.

He feels Mikael, warm at his back. His Master is awake. Derek knows because Mikael is tracing the scarred lines criss-crossing Derek's back. In his mind's eye, he can see Mikael's elegant and well-manicured fingertips against the ugliness of his back. Derek isn't sure that the two go together.

Neither of them say anything for a long time. Derek watches the ocean and the sway of the curtains. Mikael's fingers slide over Derek's skin, over his scars, over his tattoos.

"When Katherine is found, she'll die." The words are whispered against Derek's shoulder. "When Carl is found, he'll die too."

Derek is silent for awhile. Talking has been hard for him lately. There are questions that begged to be asked though. He has to work himself up to them, talk himself into them.

"You have people looking for them, Master?"

"I do."

That worries Derek. He remembers the agents outside of his apartment, dead in their car while they were supposed to be protecting him. He remembers Sarah. He doesn't want anymore blood on his hands.

"Carl has no rule book, Master."

"Neither do my people."

Of course they don't. This is Mikael, his Master. The FBI couldn't find Carl Buford. If anyone can, it will be Mikael. His Master rules the world.

"Good." Derek says.

He realizes belatedly that he didn't say Master after that one word. He leaves it as it is. Mikael doesn't correct him. Maybe it's that lack of correction on his Master's part that makes him say what he says next.

"If you want another pet, I'd understand, Master." The thought makes his stomach twist uncomfortably. It would be the final nail in his coffin to lose Mikael, to lose being owned by his Master, Derek knows that.

Mikael's arm slides around Derek's waist, pulling his back close to his chest. "What are you, Derek?"

Derek remembers asking Mikael what he was when he'd first arrived. He'd been called so many things up to that point. Right now his mind answers with 'ugly whore'. Thanks to Mikael's slow game, laying a foundation with Derek, he knows the right answer isn't what his mind is telling him.

"I'm yours, Master." He says.

"I don't want another pet." Mikael kisses Derek's shoulder. "I have what I want."

For awhile Derek lets that sit there. He listens to the ocean. He watches the curtains sway. Mikael seems content to wait and see if Derek has anything else to ask, anything to say.

"Do you want a wife, Master?"

"No, I've done that before. Recent events have absolutely soured the taste of it in every way."

"Do you want a woman to be yours too, Master?"

"No. Derek, there's nothing you did wrong. The mistake was mine. These scars on your body are mine and I will never forget that." The guilt in Mikael's voice is a weighty thing. Derek feels it hanging heavy in the air.

Derek decides to let the conversation sit there again, let things settle for awhile. He feels Mikael shift away from him, only to come back. Moments later the scent of cloves fills the room. Mikael is behind Derek, up on one shoulder. His hand holds the cigarette between two fingers, the pinky finger of that hand draws over Derek's bicep where his lion tattoo is.

"Carl would have found a way, Master." Derek finally says. "Obsession is... it's a powerful thing. You get so fixated on something, or someone, that you can't ever let it go. The minute he switched over into obsession, I was put on this path without my even knowing it." Because Hotch was trying to protect him, believed in a system that didn't find Carl Buford in time.

Derek shifts, laying back to look up at his Master. "Am I saying too much, Master?"

"Never." Mikael says. "You can never say too much."

"My point is that he would have found a way to get to me, no matter what. He found out about you. A little research would lead him to your ex-wife. Things were rocky there, he could manipulate her. All the guilt regarding me and whatever the hell I look like right now, that's not on you, Master." Derek shakes his head. He needs Mikael to know that he truly believes that much.

Mikael's fingertip touches Derek's face over his scar. "You're the professional, my darling lion."

"What is on you, is Katherine. Master." Derek says, a spark of the fire he's lost flickering in his eyes. He can feel it. One minute there was nothing there. The next there was a smoldering ember. "You said you chose me. I thought you were mine too. Which..."

"Do you want me to be yours too?"

Derek remembers that sting of jealousy that he hadn't felt in so long. It had hurt. He'd felt betrayed. He was jealous. "Yes, Master."

"I'm yours. I've always been yours. I made a horrible mistake with Katherine, Derek. I know I did." Mikael says. "But I'm yours."

Derek stares up into eyes that can shift between the color of the ocean or the cool of ice depending on his moods. "Do you still want me? I mean, sex..."

"I think I took your mouth quite well last night." Mikael teases around his cigarette, a grin pulling at his lips. "Yes, I want you. In every way. You're mine."

"Will you fuck me?" Derek turns onto his side, a hand resting at Mikael's hip as he leans in to kiss at his neck. "Please, Master. Will you fuck me? I need it. I need you."

"Not yet." The answer surprises Derek, has him pulling back uncertainly. His Master is quick to reassure him. "Not because I don't want to. I just want to be careful. We're going to start with a small plug, work our way up to see what you can handle and spread you wider. When I'm sure you're fully healed, when I'm sure I won't be doing any more damage inside of you, I'll fuck you so hard you'll scream."

Derek understands the need for caution. Carl had shoved a knife inside of him, more than once. The tissue inside had been sliced, shredded, painfully so. Derek understands. He's still fragile enough for it to sting a little.

He dips his head and nods. "Yes, Master."

Mikael's fingertips are immediately at his chin, bringing Derek's head back up, Derek's gaze up to him. "You are beautiful and I want you. I want you to work on looking up, no more looking at the floor. Can you try to do that for me?"

Can he? It should be a simple task. Yes, he can. Derek nods. "Yes, Master. I'll try."

"Lie back." Mikael takes another drag of his cigarette before stretching to rest what's left of it in an ashtray on the bedside table.

Derek lies back onto the mattress. Mikael tells him to spread his arms out to either side of him, palms down. Derek does so. The sheets are pushed down and Mikael settles between Derek's legs hands spreading them as wide as they'll go with a press to his thighs. Derek is on full display for his Master.

"If you move your hands, I stop. Understood?"

"Yes, Master."

"Who owns you?"

"You own me, Master."

"Who owns this?" Mikael has grabbed Derek's cock.

"You do, Master."

"Mine."

"Yours."

Nothing could prepare Derek for the feeling of his Master's tongue sliding up his cock. His hips jerk up off of the mattress and Mikael chuckles, hands pressing at Derek's hip bones to push him back into the mattress. It's been so long. Derek needs.

Mikael takes Derek into his mouth, one of his hands sliding up Derek's abdomen over muscled crevices, up to his chest where he pinches a pierced nipple, pulling on it, pinching again. Derek's body is in overdrive. He keeps waiting for that tickle in his ass, the one that's been there since Doctor Young in the labs at the Gallery. It isn't there.

This is enough though. His cock is hard, always hard. He struggles to keep his arms out to his side, fingers clawing at the sheet beneath him. He's already leaking into his Master's mouth, can feel the swipe of his Master's tongue to lick it up. Mikael's mouth is perfect, confident, necessary.

Mikael sucks his way off with a popping sound, his hand pumps Derek a few times. "Would you like to cum, darling?"

"Yes, Master. Please." Derek exhales a breath he'd been holding then gasps for another one. "Please."

"Cum now."

Derek cums. His entire torso lifts off the bed as he feels the intensity of his own pleasure.

His Master is sure to get most of Derek's spill on Derek's chest and abdomen. Then he slides up to rest beside Derek and swipes some of the spill onto his fingertips. "It's time for breakfast, my sweet lion."

 

* * *

 

The truth is that Derek has noticed that something was off for awhile. He could contribute that 'off' feeling to the pain he had for forever, pain everywhere. But then things weren't so painful anymore. Then he tries to attribute the void to the tightness of his skin where it was held together with stitches and scars were forming. But then the stitches were taken out. That strangeness is still there.

When Mikael uses a wand on him in the shower, Derek feels that oddness magnify tenfold. It isn't painful. It's just... not right. Then his Master slicks his insides with lubricant. Derek still feels strange. The plug his Master uses is small compared to what he's used to. It's slipped inside of him. There's nothing.

Nothing is the problem.

"Master?"

"Mhm?" Mikael continues sliding the plug in until it slips past that tight ring of muscle.

"I can't feel it."

Mikael stands up and turns Derek to face him. "You can't feel the plug?"

"I didn't feel the wand or your touch or..." Derek shakes his head. He's trying not to panic. Feeling it is so much a part of him now that he needs it. He needs to feel it. "No, Master. I can't feel it."

"It's all right." Mikael rests a hand on Derek's shoulder. "Javid said that might be a possibility. I'll call him. You'll be fine, darling. You'll be fine."

 

* * *

The four of them spend the next three days out on the beach. Derek's and Nick's skin are darker than they have been, Derek's a darker brown and Nick's a rich tan. Mikael and Zane keep slathering on sun block on their pale skin to keep from burning.

Doctor Javid arrives on the third day in the afternoon. He's brought a bag so he can stay for a few days and medical supplies and his own pet who doubles as an assistant. She's a beautiful woman, small and petite. The moment they arrive, he disappears into one of the spare bedrooms. When they reappear she's naked except for a collar.

Mikael takes Derek into their bedroom where Javid and his pet join them. Derek is told to fold his knees up beneath him and lay face down on the bed with his arms spread out to either side. Mikael sits close to his head, a hand resting on his arm.

"You've had the speculum in you before, Derek. I'm going to open you up a bit, okay?"

"Yes, Sir."

The plug is removed and the procedure is similar to what Doctor Young had done to him in every way. Doctor Javid's fingers prod his insides. "It's like I suspected, Mikael. He's scarred over in several places. The tissue is hard instead of soft."

"Will the procedure work?" Mikael asks.

"It should. I just have to be selective about where I inject Doctor Young's serum." Javid says. "There's going to be a few pricks, Derek. I want Mikael to hold your hand and I want you to squeeze his hand anytime you feel the pricks."

Mikael's hand slides down Derek's arm to grasp Derek's hand.

Derek waits. He knows Doctor Javid has something inside of him, but he can't feel it. Derek waits. And he waits. He waits.

Then he feels it. A tiny prick inside where it isn't so strange to feel things anymore. It's strange _not_ to feel. Feeling things there is normal. He needs it. He quickly squeezes Mikael's hand.

"Very good. We're going to keep this up for awhile. Keep squeezing Mikael's hand when you feel it."

Derek keeps squeezing his Master's hand again and again. He's so thankful to feel something there that he could cry. He doesn't though. He turns his head sideways and looks up at his Master. Mikael smiles at him. Each time Derek squeezes Mikael's hand, Mikael nods at Javid. Derek feels like he's being put back together.

_I'm okay._


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the episode 8x18 - Restoration
> 
> What if Carl Buford didn't die? What if he lived and escaped from prison? This is going to be an AU where this happens. It's going to take Derek many places and get very dark and twisted. If you are triggered by non-consensual rape elements, this isn't the fic for you.
> 
> This is Part 2 of the A Lion Tamed Series. Please read Part 1 first.

It takes several procedures with Doctor Javid over a full week. But Derek starts to feel that tingle, that almost itching sensation that begs to be touched again. He'd hated that feeling when the serum had first been injected so long ago in the labs at the Gallery. Now it's so much a part of him that he'd felt incomplete without it.

Maybe, also, Derek isn't willing to let Carl have any piece of him. Carl had literally carved at him with whip and knife. Not having that piece of himself because of what Carl had done would have fractured him again, irreparably so.

Doctor Javid also makes sure all of Derek's wounds are healing properly. He restocks Mikael's store of salve that is spread on the scars every night and every morning. Then Doctor Javid is gone. He's needed back at Mikael's business.

During this week, Mikael has started putting plugs in Derek again too. First small, gradually working up to bigger and bigger plugs as the week progresses.

Derek is in the kitchen with Nick one evening after an entire day spent on the beach and in the water. Nick has offered to cook dinner and Derek asked if he could help. His Master had given permission. Zane and Mikael are playing a game of chess in the living room.

"Just stir that sauce. Make sure it doesn't burn."

Derek stirs the sauce, staring into the pot. Nick is letting the pork chops cook in a pan. Nick leans back against the counter next to Derek.

"How are you feeling?" The backs of Nick's fingers brush over Derek's hip.

"I'm okay."

"Yeah, you're okay. But how are you feeling?"

Derek shrugs. "I don't ever want to leave here, Sir. Things are starting to feel right again. Out there..."

"Out there is scary."

"Yes, Sir."

Nick nods, crossing his arms over his chest. He looks like he wants to say something, stops himself, decides on something else. "I'm glad you're okay. I've been worried about you."

"Have you guarded other pets at the Gallery, Sir?" Derek asks.

"I have." There's a pause here where they look at each other, Derek not asking what he wants to ask and Nick debating saying anything more or not. "You were different. You... never looked down. No matter what they did to you. You kept some of yourself. Somehow. I mean how can you not root for a guy like that?"

Derek smirks. "You were rooting for me, Sir."

"In the only way I could."

They stare at one another again. The moment stretches. Nick looks away before Derek does, only to call into the living room. "Permission to kiss your pet, Sir."

Derek looks back to see both Mikael and Zane looking over to them. Mikael nods. "Granted."

Nick's fingers are at his chin and Derek feels Nick's lips on his. He vaguely hears Zane say 'oh, I need in on this'. Then Zane is beside him and Nick. The minute the kiss breaks, Zane kisses him too. Derek feels warm on the inside. When that kiss breaks, Nick and Zane kiss, Nick grinning against the others lips.

"Just so we're clear, I'm not here to cook, just... there was kissing and that's hot." Zane leaps back over the furniture to continue his game with Mikael.

Derek looks over to his Master who nods at him. Mikael is pleased. Derek is happy.

"Maybe we should confront that fear."

Nick's voice pulls Derek's attention back to the other man. "What fear, Sir?"

"The fear over what's out there."

Derek starts to say no, but no is now and will always be a bad word for him. "I'm not sure... Sir, it's..."

"Come on... where's that brave lion I can't get enough of?" Nick asks. His voice almost sounds teasing, flirtatious. "You won't be alone. People will have to get through me and Zane to get to you and Mikael."

Lions are brave. Derek sometimes forgets that he got that tattoo for a reason, especially lately. Brave, fierce, kings of their domain. Derek wants to be that lion that caught Nick's attention, dangerous to anyone but Mikael. "All four of us, Sir?"

"All four of us. I'll talk to your Master."

 

* * *

 

It's two nights after that conversation when Derek is standing in the living room with Mikael making sure all the laces of his clothes are tightened and knotted just right. Derek is a bundle of nervous energy.

Mikael is wearing a suit without the necktie. This is his version of dressing down. Nick is in cargo pants and a tee. Zane is just making an appearance and is in jeans and a tee.

Derek wants to go hide in the ocean.

"Well I think we're ready. Zane, for a man with no hair and such simple attire, you do take forever to get ready." Mikael teases Zane as they walk out to the car.

"This is officially our first date with just the four of us. I had to make sure I look up to par with the rest of you."

Nick smirks. "Is that what this is? A date?"

"Well yeah. Isn't it?"

Both Nick and Zane look to Mikael. The man lets them suffer for a moment before nodding. "This is a date, yes."

"Ha!" Zane barks. "See?"

They pile into the car, Nick and Zane in the front and Mikael and Derek in the back. The drive back in toward civilization is about twenty minutes. Derek has all this time to stew in his anxiety over being in public around people.

The sun has already fallen into the horizon and the sky is darkening. Daytime tourists are tucking in for the night. The nightlife is just starting to pick up. Nick parks the car in the general area of the bar they're going to.

They have to walk a block and a half to get there, but Derek can feel the thud of the base beat as they get closer. He has a memory of Jai's arm wrapping around him to take him back to Antoine before Derek knew his old Master had passed away. He pushes that memory aside.

Mikael lets go of Derek's hand and Nick and Zane flank either side of Derek while Mikael pays their way in.

The inside is dimly lit with tall tables and stools. There's a live band playing on the stage against one wall, a dance floor. The entire back wall of the place is open to a large patio. The place is packed with people. Derek starts to dip his head, then he doesn't. He makes himself stop. He forces his chin to lift defiantly and takes a deep breath to puff his chest a little bit.

A lion. I'm a lion.

People are looking, but Derek tries not to care.

Zane takes Derek's hand and leads him to the bar with him. Mikael and Nick move to a corner table and retrieve two more stools to add to the two that are already there.

"A bucket of corona and keep it comin'." Zane orders, opening a tab. He leans over to Derek while the bartender is filling a bucket with bottles and ice. "Corona is your Master's favorite. Do you like it?"

"I like most beers, Sir." Derek says. "I used to... I mean from before, we'd go out and have beers a lot together. My friends, I mean."

"Maybe we can start doing this more often." Zane glances back to the dance floor then over to Derek again. "Tell me you like to dance. This body of yours must know how to move."

Derek gives Zane a small smile. "I used to dance all the time, Sir. Do you like to dance?"

"I love to dance! Seriously, anything but line dancing. You don't line dance, do you?"

This time Derek laughs and shakes his head. "No, Sir. Just... dancing. Nothing choreographed."

"That's a relief."

They get their bucket and take it to the table. Derek gets to sit between Mikael and Zane on one of the tall stools. His Master sets a beer in front of Derek and nods. "You have permission to drink it yourself."

Zane holds his beer up. "To date number uno!"

They all clink bottles and take a drink. Derek looks to Mikael as he drinks. His Master smiles at him. Mikael is pleased. Derek is happy.

Three buckets later, and conversation about everything under the sun, after several kisses shared and laughs and then more kisses, Zane demands there be dancing.

"Derek likes to dance! You okay with him dancing, Mikael?"

"I'm fine with it. I, however, am not the dancing type. Not to this kind of music anyway."

Zane grabs Derek's hand and one of Nick's too and drags them out to the crowded dance floor. Derek doesn't even notice if anyone is staring at this point. He's had enough drinks that he doesn't care. Nick and Zane keep him in between them and the three of them dance together. Their hands never leave Derek. They never let anyone else in too close to him. And they dance.

They dance to fast songs and slow songs, sexy songs and silly songs. Derek looses himself in it just as he used to do. His body easily finds the beat and moves with the push and pull of the music. He feels free and happy, drunk and good - more so than he's felt in a long time.

He spots Mikael at their table across the way, his Master's icy blue eyes never leave him. His Master smokes one of his cloves. Derek thinks he can smell the spicy aroma.

He feels like a wild thing, a dancing flame, fierce and dangerous, seductive and beautiful.

He feels right in his own skin. He feels safe between Nick and Zane. Again, Derek is being reborn. He dances for his Master.

They close the place down.

 

* * *

It's early morning when Mikael is fumbling with the keys to the front door of their beach home. He drops the keys.

"I'll get it! Me to the rescue!" Zane proclaims, picking the keys up and then fumbling with them in the door in the same way Mikael had. Eventually he gets the door open and lets out a triumphant sound.

Derek is smiling. He feels like he's had a perpetual smile on his face for much of the night. He's smiled so much his cheeks hurt. It's been a long, long time since he's smiled this much.

"Every single one of you, my room, clothes off." Mikael says. "Nick and Zane will disrobe you, Derek."

"Uh oh. He's going all dom on us." Zane says.

Nick takes Derek's hand and leads him into the bedroom. Nick and Zane work on Derek's clothes first since it has so many ties. Once Derek is naked, he kneels on the floor, hands behind his back, and watches the other two get undressed. He's drunk and happy and he wants to be fucked so damn bad. That would make it the perfect ending to the perfect night.

While Mikael is tall and slim but well built, Nick and Zane are the quintessential body guards, tall and broad and built. Derek is enjoying the view of their undressing when Mikael enters the room with four bottles of water. Apparently he's anticipating hangovers in the morning.

Mikael grabs two of his neckties and orders Derek onto the bed on his knees facing the headboard. He ties Derek's hands, spread eagle, to the posts at the headboard with his silken thousand-dollar neckties.

"Zane, stand there and give Derek your cock."

"Oh fuck yes. Don't have to tell me twice." Zane slides up under one of Derek's tied arms, kisses Derek's lips, then stands in front of him, leaning back against the headboard and the wall.

Mikael is disrobing, Derek can hear it. Then he feels the shift of the mattress as his Master crawls onto the bed behind him. Mikael presses at the base of the plug in Derek's ass. Derek emits a groan in anticipation. "Yes, Master. Please." He says.

His Master grabs Derek's braids and pulls his head back. He hisses in Derek's ear. "You drove me wild tonight, watching you dance. I'm going to fuck you now. Would you like that, Derek?"

"Yes, Master. Fuck me."

"You'll suck Zane's cock while I do."

"Yes, Master. Please fuck me."

"Nick." Mikael snaps his fingers and points to the small space between Zane and Derek. "You will suck Derek. If he cums before he has permission, we all stop."

The plug is pumped in his ass a few times. Derek can barely stand it. Then it's pulled out and Mikael is pushing up into him. Derek groans again. He's needed this. He's needed it so bad. Now his Master is pushing deeper and deeper and Derek has to remind himself to lean in and Take Zane's cock into his mouth and suck him off.

He feels the bed shift as Nick slides onto the mattress between where Derek kneels and Zane stands. Zane's hand is in his braids at the top of his head. Nick's hand slides up Derek's thigh before Derek feels wet heat around his own cock. Nick's other hand is touching himself.

How the fuck is he supposed to keep from cumming? ShitFuckDamn.

Derek focuses all of his mind there, to keep from letting himself tip over that edge. His Master is plowing into him so that Derek's body jerks forward with each thrust. Nick and Zane have worked up a similar pattern. Derek feels used in every way. But not just used... he feels loved too. These men love him. He loves them.

Zane is the first to spill into Derek's mouth around a string of eloquent curse words. Derek drinks it down, milks Zane for every last drop with his mouth and tongue. Nick's hands are on Derek's balls, kneading as he sucks Derek's cock occasionally biting at one of the gold piercings of the jacob's ladder and tugging at them. That drives Derek wild.

He is a wild thing trying to stay tame and not cum.

His Master cums next, spilling inside of him and yet continuing to thrust hard and fast. "Oh, my lion." He whispers into Derek's ear. "Mine."

Nick is seconds later, spilling onto his own stomach and pulling his mouth away from Derek's cock to cry out. "Oh hell..." Nick adds quietly.

Derek's skin is coated in a sheen of sweat. His chest is heavy with each breath. His Master has put the plug back inside to keep his cum where it is. No one is touching him, but Derek shudders, muscles flexing, body wanting.

"Nick, slide in front of Derek." Mikael orders. Nick slides up further onto the bed so that his cum coated stomach is beneath Derek.

"Cum now."

Derek cums. He cums so much that even when he thinks he's done, there's more. It all falls onto Nick, dotting the man's skin and mixing with what's already there.

Derek leans back against Mikael, head lolling back to his Master's shoulder when he's done. "Do I get to have dessert, Master?"

"You do, Derek. You do." Mikael says. "You won't leave a drop of it, will you?"

"No, Master. I won't leave any of it." Mikael pulls at one restraint while Zane unties the other. Derek leans down to start licking at Nick's skin.

His Master's hand pets his spine. "Good lion."


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the episode 8x18 - Restoration
> 
> What if Carl Buford didn't die? What if he lived and escaped from prison? This is going to be an AU where this happens. It's going to take Derek many places and get very dark and twisted. If you are triggered by non-consensual rape elements, this isn't the fic for you.
> 
> This is Part 2 of the A Lion Tamed Series. Please read Part 1 first.

Time passes. Sometimes Derek wakes up in the middle of a tangle of limbs with his Master and his guards. Sometimes he wakes up with just him and his Master. Derek can't decide which he likes better. Maybe he likes both equally as long as his Master is present and pleased.

Mikael is on the phone more and more often, work calling but trying very hard to prolong their stay here for Derek's sake. Derek can't bring himself to let his Master know that it's okay to go back now. Derek doesn't want to go back.

Nick is on the phone too, reporting back to the Mistress presumably. It's hard to imagine Nick having some kind of life outside of the Gallery or outside of being his guard. But Nick must have a family somewhere. He must have some kind of life, people who worry over him.

This leaves Derek with Zane a lot of the time. Derek is fine with this. Zane is fun.

Zane has bought them a football and a frisbee that they throw back and forth on the beach. It feeds Derek's inner sports fanatic.

Zane ordered them massages to have together on the deck outside. Derek slithers off of the table, all of his muscles turned to goo afterward.

Zane and Derek go swim in the ocean and ride the waves on surfboards. It's been years since Derek has ridden a surfboard. It easily comes back to him though.

Sometimes Nick joins them in tossing the football or trying to surf. Derek and Zane make the worst surfing teachers, but they do try. Hilarity ensues.

Mikael reads to Derek while he's curled up against him in a lounge by the swimming pool. Mikael loves classic literature, Derek is learning. Now they're reading The Great Gatsby. Derek thinks he could listen to Mikael read the phone book and he'd be perfectly content just with the tenor and cadence of his Master's voice.

They go back to the bar a few times. It's always fun. Derek always dances for his Master. It drives his Master wild each and every time.

Mikael lets Derek please him often, fucking either Derek's mouth or his ass. Mikael is pleased. Derek is happy.

He never wants to leave this place, but leaving is inevitable. His Master has a business to run. Derek doesn't much care for that business, but he loves Mikael.

They're in the living room watching a movie that Nick picked out. It's an old John Wayne film. Nick says his dad used to love John Wayne films. None of the rest of them have seen it so they're all enjoying it, three of them on the couch with Derek kneeling on the floor between Mikael and Zane.

"I need to learn how to walk like John Wayne." Zane says. "It's like a... bad ass drunken swagger."

"My dad was a real cowboy." Nick says. "He had a swagger."

"Okay, so what I just heard is that Nick can teach us all to swagger like John Wayne."

Nick chuckles and shakes his head. "I did not just say that."

"I'd rather have moves like Jagger, Sirs." Derek pipes up.

Everyone is quiet for a moment. They're all still getting used to Derek's voice coming back to him. Even Derek is still getting used to it, slowly but surely. Eventually, they all laugh.

"We all know you've got the moves like Jagger." Zane says, hums some of the appropriate song, then continues. "I see what you did there."

Mikael's hand rests on his shoulders, lightly massaging the muscles there. "I don't even know how we're supposed to pay attention to the movie with the way you three yammer on and on and on."

"Basically, John Wayne always wins. He's kind of a bad ass." Zane says. "That's part of the John Wayne mystique anyway."

"Except he dies in a lot more movies than people think. He might win, but he doesn't always get to celebrate the win." Nick says. "And he isn't _kind_ of a bad ass. He _is_ a bad ass."

"I'm pretty sure that's the most words Nick has ever strung together." Zane slow claps for Nick. "Way to go, man."

Nick punches Zane in the arm. Zane punches Nick back.

"Children." Mikael warns playfully.

Derek is pretty sure everything is perfect.

That's the thing about perfect moments, they never last.

Nick's phone rings and he excuses himself and goes out to the deck. The other three continue to watch the film.

"Master?"

Mikael is idly twisting some of Derek's braids together. "Yes, Darling?"

"Do you think I could have an iPod?" Derek asks. "For music, Master."

"I think we could arrange that." The smile is audible in Mikael's voice. His Master leans in to kiss one side of Derek's shaved head. "Is there anything else I can get you?"

"No, Master. That's all." Derek is not a greedy person. He needs very little. He doesn't even really _need_ the few things he has as long as he has his people.

"If you think of something, let me know."

"Yes, Master."

"Make sure you put the 'Moves Like Jagger' song on it." Zane smirks.

The patio door opens and Nick calls in. "Mikael. Can I speak with you out here?"

"Of course." Mikael slides off of the couch. He goes outside with Nick.

Zane slides closer to Derek and picks up braiding some of Derek's braids together where Mikael had left off. "So I was thinking we could try going to one of the big bonfire barbecues they have on the beach here a few nights a week. It's just down the beach a bit. You think you could handle that?"

"Yes, Sir. I think I'd be fine if all of us were together." Derek has gotten better at being around people. He doesn't worry so much when they stare. His Master thinks he's beautiful. His guards think he's beautiful.

There's a slight tug at his braids. "Like we'd ever let you go anywhere alone. You're stuck with us. We keep you safe."

Derek almost smiles. It's a smile interrupted.

Yelling comes from the patio. Derek looks out there in time to see Mikael throw a punch that clocks Nick hard in the face. Zane is leaping off of the couch but only gets halfway before Mikael is hurrying inside and grabbing his phone.

"What's up, boss?" Zane asks.

Mikael shakes his head, looks to Derek and puts the phone to his ear after dialing. "Code 4. This is not a drill. Code 4. Yes. Immediately." Mikael hangs up.

Zane looks deeply disturbed. "Code 4..."

"Mikael, I'm sorry." Nick says.

"You shut up." Mikael is so angry he's shaking. "I have to think."

Derek stands and moves over to Mikael. He takes one of his Master's hands in his. He doesn't say anything. His Master just told Nick to shut up. He needs silence. But he can't figure out what might have happened to make Mikael punch Nick. And what is code 4?

Mikael is silent for a long time, his fingers work against Derek's as his mind goes a million miles a minute. The four of them stand there, each of them looking at Mikael, Mikael looking at nothing.

Finally, Mikael glares at Nick. "Nick, why don't you do the honors?"

Nick's lips thin. His lip is bleeding where Mikael had hit him. He takes several deep breaths, then swallows hard. "The Gallery is falling tonight."

"Falling, as in..." Zane tilts his head. "The Feds?"

Nick nods.

"How do you know that?" Zane asks.

"Because... I'm deep cover FBI." Nick looks at Derek.

Derek looks at Nick. Oh. "You're FBI." Derek repeats the words because it feels like they need to be repeated in order for them to be true. "Sir."

Zane hauls back to hit Nick. Derek gets the feeling that Nick lets the hit land.

Derek feels like his stomach has just dropped out of him.

Nick is holding his cheek. If Mikael's hit had hurt, Zane's would have hurt worse. "They don't know anything about either of you. I never told them anything about you. All they know is that Derek has been safe." He looks between Mikael and Zane, then Mikael again. "And I told you so you could protect yourself. What's code 4?"

"As if I'd tell you anything now." Mikael sneers.

Derek's Master looks to Zane, the two of them share a silent conversation before Mikael speaks again. "I'm connected to the Gallery. If they don't wipe their files in time, every transaction I've ever had with them will be decoded and scrutinized. They'll come after me, the people in my employ. And my business... I have to go underground."

"I'll go with you." Zane says.

"No. I want you with Derek."

Wait. Does that mean he isn't going with Mikael underground? "Master? N-..." He stops the word no, but only just barely. He trips over it. He's shaking his head though.

"I _trust_ you with Derek." Mikael reiterates to Zane. "You have to take him."

"Take him where?" Zane asks.

"I have several different accounts. You'll have money. Take him..." Mikael goes silent again, thinking.

"I have a place." Nick says.

Zane shakes his head. "Oh hell no."

"Where?" Mikael asks.

"Oh _hell_ no! Mikael..." Zane steps between Mikael and Nick, looking imploringly to his old friend as he shakes his head. "He's a fucking fed, Mikael! He's been lying to us all this time!"

"He also told me about it with enough time for me to save the Masters under my employ. He cares about Derek. That wasn't a lie, was it?"

"No." Nick says. "That was the truth."

"You don't really know that. Let me repeat: he's been lying to us this whole time!"

"That's why you'll be there. If he hurts Derek, kill him. If he tries to fix Derek without my supervision, kill him. If he does anything questionable to Derek, kill him. You're my eyes and ears while I ensure my people are okay and that I'm in the clear from any connection with the Gallery."

Zane seems to still be considering this even as he steps aside.

"Where?"

"D.C. area." Nick says.

Derek's stomach does that flip-flop thing again, nerves roiling inside of him. D.C. area is where that old version of him used to live. Nick is FBI. Of course there's a possibility he lives in the D.C. area.

Nick seems to be bracing himself, as if he has something else to say. Mikael and Zane seem to sense this too and wait Nick out with strained patience.

"I..." Nick starts. "I'm supposed to take Derek home."

"The feds ordered you to take Derek back to them." Zane says.

"If I can. They know I have access to him, that's it. But I'm supposed to bring him home."

Both Mikael and Zane step away as if if they were to stay close they might hit Nick again. 

Mikael's hand slips from Derek's and Derek finds his knees buckling. He needs to be on his knees. Derek is on his knees, naked, knees spread, hands clasped behind his back. He's comfortable this way. Things are okay when he's this way. He can stay right here like this and things will right themselves.

"You've been planning to take him this whole time." Mikael looks at Nick in disbelief.

Nick doesn't answer and that's enough of an answer for everyone.

"Can I hit him again, boss?" Zane asks.

"No."

"I planned to take him back when my assignment was over." Nick admits.

"The assignment of giving the FBI intelligence on the Gallery?"

Nick nods. "And then he came to you and I came with him. And... I saw how he needs you. I can make this work out for all of us."

"There has to be an 'all of us' for there to be anything to work out." Zane says. "From where I'm standing, there's us three and then there's you and a bunch of question marks."

"How can you make this work out?" Mikael asks.

"Mikael?" Zane is once again in disbelief.

"If I take him back, no one will suspect anything. They thought he wanted to be with me the last time we were in custody. They'll think he wants to be with me again and this time I can work them so that they'll let him. The Gallery is falling. My assignment is over."

"Zane will be with you as well."

"Why?"

"Because I don't trust you with Derek." Mikael says. His hand is suddenly in the braids at the top of Derek's head. "And he's my most prized and cherished possession. I trust Zane with my heart. Derek is my heart. You'll make Zane a part of your lies or I will find another way."

"I'll make Zane fit."

"I can't even believe this is happening." Zane shakes his head.

"What about the harem, Sir?" Derek asks, eyeing nick with eyes that are angry and on fire. He's been listening to this whole exchange. He won't go against Mikael, but he feels betrayed by Nick just as much as the others do. On another hand, having been FBI, he can understand deep cover and all the lies it entails. "What about the Mistress's harem?"

Nick shakes his head. "I don't know. I'm sorry. I'll try to find out."

"Is Nick even your real name?" Deep under cover, they wouldn't have let him use his real name.

Once again Nick shakes his head, lips thinned. "No, it's Jesse. My name is Jesse."

Derek has a moment of compassion here. He's been under cover before. While he was in the catacombs he also never heard his name. He knows how it feels not to hear your name for too damn long. "Jesse."

Nick looks relieved. Derek nods. Jesse, not Nick, looks relieved.

"There have to be files, Master." Derek adds.

"What do you mean, darling?" Mikael asks.

"I have a computer chip in my shoulder, a tracking device. And the bar code on my ankle. That implies some kind of filing system, a way of keeping track of everything." Derek looks up to his Master. "That means I need to get away from you."

Mikael nods slowly. "I'm going to push it for a few hours more, Derek." His Master looks at Jesse. "What do you need to make this work?"

"Just get us on U.S. soil." Jesse says. "I'll do the rest. You can meet up with us when and if you can."

Zane rolls his eyes and runs his hands over his head. "Fuck this shit. Fuck me. Fuck everything."


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the episode 8x18 - Restoration
> 
> What if Carl Buford didn't die? What if he lived and escaped from prison? This is going to be an AU where this happens. It's going to take Derek many places and get very dark and twisted. If you are triggered by non-consensual rape elements, this isn't the fic for you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks so much for reading! Lots of loose ends to be tied off (ha ha) in the next, and final (I think), installment.
> 
> Part 3 of this story is coming soon!

Mikael takes Derek to their room, bends him over the foot of the bed and fucks him hard. Mikael plows into him with a fervor he never has before. There's a hint of anger and desperation to it. Derek takes it willingly because he will always take all of his Master's pent up frustrations willingly.

As carnal as it is, Derek wants and needs it too. 

Derek lounges on the bed as Mikael makes a few phone calls to set things up. They'll use his plane to get to the states. Mikael will take a helicopter to an undisclosed location.

It continues like this through several hours. Mikael fucks him, then makes phone calls. Mikael makes love to him, then makes phone calls. Again and again.

Derek's Master is stressed out. Derek feels like a timer is ticking down... down... down...

They're lounging in bed together. Derek is curled up against Mikael. Mikael's fingers trace Derek's features. Derek tries so hard not to shy away from the touch to his scars. He welcomes his Master's touch. His entire body, scars and all, belong to Mikael.

"I'm going to have to pack."

"I wish I could go with you, Master."

"I wish you could too. But we both know that you can't. I have things I need to do to protect people who trust me to protect them. If the Gallery didn't have time to wipe files you will lead them to me just by our being together. Nick... Jesse is supposed to take you back to the states. The FBI is expecting you. Letting him take you is my only way of protecting us both, for now."

Deep down, Derek knows that all of that is true.

"I want you to follow Zane's instructions to the letter. Zane is the only one you can trust. Zane will keep you safe for me."

Derek nods. His trust in Jesse is broken too. Zane and Mikael still have his trust.

"He was doing his job." Speaking of Jesse.

"I know."

"He got emotionally involved."

"With you, I know."

"It's hard not to do that when you're living a lie. It's human nature to look for a connection somewhere, anywhere." Derek says. "He probably heard I was FBI too and... who knows how long he'd been there to get in that deep in the Gallery. The Mistress trusted him. That takes time. A long time."

"Derek, you're looking for an excuse for his lies because you care about him. I understand. I've grown to care about him as well. I cared about Nick. Jesse is a stranger to me, to all of us. Be careful with him." Mikael kisses the top of Derek's head. "He's the reason we're having to part ways for awhile. I'll use him for your safety until he's no longer useful."

Mikael is right. Derek hates Jesse for that. He also loves Nick.

His Master pulls away and gets the suitcases out from under the bed. Derek gets up onto his knees on the mattress to watch Mikael pack his bags. "Master. I know you feel responsible for your people. But I need you too."

"And I will come back to you."

Derek isn't so sure of that. Antoine had sent him away and Derek had never seen him again. The memory, the strange parallels, they bring tears to Derek's eyes. "I lost Antoine..."

This comment makes Mikael stop. He walks over to the edge of the bed and cups either side of Derek's face. He leans in and kisses him. Derek returns the kiss. "I will not die. I will come back for you. Believe that."

Can Derek believe it? He isn't sure. Maybe. His Master rules the world.

"What are you, Derek?" Mikael asks the question against Derek's lips.

"I'm yours, Master."

"Who owns you?"

"You own me, Master."

"And I am never letting you go, not really. This is only a moment in a lifetime, Derek." Mikael says. "We will have a lifetime together. There's so much more I want to do with you... I've barely scratched the surface. And I always get my way in the end."

Derek knows that much is true. If there's a path toward Mikael getting his way, then he'll have it. They'll be together again. This is only a moment in a lifetime.

 

* * *

 

The tarmac is empty at this god awful time of morning. The sun hasn't even started to rise yet. Mikael's plane is there. So is a helicopter. There are heavily armed guards from Mikael's home by the helicopter waiting for Mikael. Jesse helps Zane with their bags, taking them into the airplane and helicopter. The two haven't spoken a word on the drive in to the airport.

Derek's ass is full of his Master's cum. Mikael had fucked him one more time and put his plug back in. Derek feels tired and sated, but also absolutely horrible at the same time. He lost Antoine. Now he's losing Mikael. His insides are one big uncomfortable mess.

Derek is angry. All of that anger is directed at one man that he's having a hard time being angry with. Derek stares at Jesse as he and Zane come over to Mikael and himself.

Jesse stays a few feet back as Zane comes in close. Zane exhales a heavy breath. "We're ready. You sure about this?"

Mikael nods. "It's what has to be done. You will care for Derek in the same way I would."

"Yes, Sir."

"Feed him, bathe him, groom him."

"I know exactly what to do, Sir."

"He is only alone with Jesse when he absolutely has to be."

"Yes, Sir."

"You will see to Derek's sexual needs. He will want for nothing."

"Except you, Sir."

Derek looks over to Mikael. "I can wait for you, Master."

"Zane will take care of you." Mikael leans over to brush a kiss against Derek's cheek, over to his lips. Derek kisses him back. Mikael tastes of cloves. "Zane is my voice in my absence. You'll do as he says."

"Yes, Master."

Mikael looks over to Jesse, then to Zane. "You're going to have to weigh everything Jesse says and find the truth. There are times when Derek may have to be with him. Ask questions. Know every answer. If Jesse doesn't follow what he says he'll do to the letter, kill him, take Derek and run. I'll find you."

Zane nods.

"When he's no longer useful to us, we're done with him."

Zane nods again.

Mikael reaches up to cup a side of Zane's cheek. "I know you're hurt. He won you over before he won me over. You trusted him. I need you to look past that hurt... for me and for Derek. I need you to have a level head."

"I'll take care of everything, boss."

"You're my best friend and closest ally."

"I know. You've got a helluva best friend."

Mikael smiles. Zane smiles. Derek doesn't smile. Neither does Jesse.

Mikael walks over to Jesse and stares at him for a long moment. "I think you know something of the resources I have at my disposal."

"Yes, Sir."

"If anything happens to Derek, you're dead. If anything happens to Zane, you're dead. If you try to separate Derek and Zane, you're dead. If you try to keep Derek from me when I'm able to retrieve him, you're dead. Are we clear?"

"Yes, Sir." Jesse nods. "You'll have him back, Mikael."

"Time will tell, won't it." It isn't a question, more of an analysis of the situation at hand.

Jesse simply nods again.

Mikael stares for another long moment, icy blue eyes trained on Jesse. The moment he turns back to Derek, ice deepens into the color of the ocean. "It's time."

Derek shakes his head and looks down to the concrete beneath his feet.

"No no no..." Mikael presses his fingers to Derek's chin and lifts his head up. "You're a lion. You're _my_ lion. You don't look down. You're strong. You're not a fragile thing, my darling. You are neither mindless or brainless. You never have been even when you've been at your lowest. You have a voice and a brilliant mind. Use both of them."

"Promise me I'll see you again, Master."

Mikael simply smiles, eyes a brilliant blue, mischievous and cunning. This is Mikael at his finest. Even when it seems he might not be in control, he'll surprise everyone. He's pulling all the strings.

The look makes Derek smirk and smile too. He'll see Mikael again.

"Now, darling, go with Zane."

Derek takes a deep breath and swallows past a lump in his throat. Jesse starts for the airplane. Derek heels behind Zane. He looks back at the bottom of the stairs to see Mikael watching him. His Master nods at him.

In the plane, Zane takes a seat on one of the long couches along the side. Jesse is up front speaking with the pilot. Derek kneels by Zane's feet.

"This fucking sucks." Zane says.

"Yes, Sir."

"You with me, Derek?"

"Yes, Sir. I'm with you." Zane is his Master's voice until he can have Mikael again. He's with Zane.

Jesse comes out of the cockpit and sits, looking out of the windows as the engines start up. "They're taking us into Florida. We'll rent a car and go up the coast from there."

"Road trip. Fun times." Zane says, the words dripping sarcasm.

"Derek, I'm sorry." Jesse is looking at Derek. Derek glares back. "You're gonna be okay."

Things don't seem okay right now. Derek has no idea how much of Jesse was in Nick. He has no idea if he can trust Jesse. He has no idea if they're safe with Jesse. Zane has orders to kill Jesse if anything seems off. If Jesse gets in the way of his being with Mikael again, Derek will kill him himself. This could all end very bloody before he gets to see Mikael again.

That's one thing that's for certain. Derek's Master can move mountains. If there's a way, Mikael will be with him again.

Derek isn't sure how to feel about where they're headed either. Home is with Mikael. It isn't in the D.C. area anymore. What must his friends in the BAU think of him after he fled from them the last time he was supposedly 'safe' with them? They must think he's insane.

Truthfully, Derek isn't sure that the insanity assessment isn't so far off the mark. His mind, while in better shape than it's been in some time, feels just a little bit crooked and bent.

He's still staring at Nick, no, Jesse. And then he speaks a surprising truth: "I'm okay."

Jesse smiles.

 

((To be continued in the third, and final (I think), installment))

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Kudos and comments are love!


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